The Pursuit of Bella Swan
by Your Favorite Worst Dream
Summary: AU. In a horrible storm, Edward’s life is saved by a beautiful girl who holds a secret that must be kept. But now that she’s disappeared into thin air, he’ll do anything to find her. Anything.
1. Chapter 1

**I am proud to introduce my new, story, **_**The Pursuit of Bella Swan**_**! Unlike my other two large stories, this idea is mine (except the obvious **_**Twilight**_** aspect), and was inspired by nothing else but a really cool thunder storm. I am insanely proud of it and I hope you like it.**

**Disclaimer: If there was a contest for who did not own **_**Twilight**_** the most, I'd so win.**

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Chapter One:  
An Encounter of Unusual Circumstances

Something was going to happen.

She could sense it in the way storm clouds of the darkest gray spread across the twilight sky overhead, in how the sea beneath her raged, and in the creaking sway of the pier she was attempting to restore her balance on the railing of.

Like the crushing sound of boulders coming into contact, thunder rumbled overhead, sending chills down the girl's spine and drowning out her joyful laughter. She could see lighting in the distance, forcing the waves of the rebelling ocean into sharp contrast. The girl tilted her head back, the wind twisting her long hair in the turbulent air, and she reveled in the moment; the complete feeling of being in the center of such a powerful and commanding tempest. Wonder was written over her smiling face and her golden eyes twinkled with the elation of it.

Suddenly, as is usual with gales of this size, the purple-gray heavens seemed to open above her head and the rain came pouring down. The rain fell down on the girl, wetting her chestnut hair and splattering against the pier, the sound blending with the roar of the water, the crack of thunder and the scream of the wind.

A brilliant blast of lightning shot through the sky then, brightening everything around the pale girl on the railing and illuminating every drop for a second, making it look as though they were frozen in time, before leaving and plunging the sky into darkness once more.

It felt like the end of the world, and she loved it.

She was so caught up in the feelings and sensations of the storm, she hadn't noticed the other sounds at first. They caught her attention, forming an incoherent strain of noises through the gale. "-ff!" "wai-" and "-ell-" was what she could hear of the masculine voice, yelling desperately through the surrounding rain.

She looked back to the private beach where she, and many other wealthy Washingtonians, owned lavish sea-front properties, and saw a figure running through the rain-covered sand to the pier she was on, waving its arms and gesturing noticeably. She squinted through the downpour and recognized the person immediately.

It was her neighbor; his hair was plastered to his forehead and his clothes dragged down by the water clinging to them. Now that he was closer, she could hear him yell, "Get off the railing! It's too dangerous!" His bare feet, the girl guessed that he had run out of the house without a second thought to get to her, slapped on the old planking of the pier as he raced towards her, trying to save her from something that would never actually harm her.

The girl tried to swing her legs around on the other side of the railing to get off and face him, but there was a sudden lurch as a beam was broken by a wave and she was sent plummeting in the water. The fall wasn't very long, and she broke the water with a splash almost undetectable among the madness around her. She had no trouble with the pull of the waves, her kind didn't even need to breath, and she stayed under the water for a minute or two, getting ready to swim back to shore.

Little did she know that after she had fallen in, her neighbor had taken no hesitation in jumping in after her, throwing himself over the railing and diving into the angry sea, no fear for his own health, just thinking of the beautiful girl in danger.

He hit the water awkwardly and was immediately engulfed in a large wave, pulling him beneath. After several moments of intense struggle, he made it to the surface and gasped for air. He looked around quickly and guessed the direction that the girl had gone before starting his way through the frigid wave. He had lived beside the ocean all his life, and the natural skill of swimming took over so he was there in moments. He dove underneath the black water and searched blindly for any sign of her, and he feared he was too late.

But, in a stroke of miracle as brilliant and brief as the lightning overhead, he grabbed hold of something cold and distinctly ankle-shaped. Though he couldn't see it, the girl turned swiftly in the water and, with eyes that saw more than one would ever think possible, she was able to glimpse the boy's relieved and happy face before a wave came down upon them both, and pulled them further under.

The boy had managed to grab a hold around her waist and struggled to drag them both to the surface, which was yards away. What was left of his breath, the rest spent after almost two minutes under water, rushed out of his body in a fitful cough that racked the water around him for more air, but found none. With his arm still around the girl's waist, his head slumped and his body grew limp, slowly floating down to the pulsing water below.

The girl had no such troubles though. She pulled the boy safely in the iron strength of her arms and pumped her feet relentlessly. The sea seemed to have no hold on the angelic figure as she crossed it at an unlikely, some would think _impossible_, pace. She was surfacing on the shore in no time, the boy she was holding gasping for air like his life depended on it; which it did, come to think of it.

She dragged him up the beach and set him down when they were far away enough from the surf. After she called his name, a strange pleasure going through her chest when she did, several times, he stirred, gave another cough, and finally opened his eyes.

His heart stuttered and stammered at what he saw. Leaning over him was the vision of a siren that could shame any of Botticelli's creations. Was this personification of beauty truly his reclusive neighbor, who he had wondered and pondered over with frustration all these months? Surely that heart-shaped face and large, full lips couldn't belong to the soft-spoken student his father had told him of meeting once. Lightning flashed overhead and brightened the sky as bright as day for a moment, illuminating her already irradiated golden eyes and sending the boy into a daze.

She leaned down further over his body, her long and soaked brown hair tickling his face, and looked him straight in his large green eyes. She called his name once more in the sweetest voice he had ever heard and asked, "Are you feeling fine? Are you hurt anywhere?"

Finding that he couldn't even form words in her presence, he shook his head. A thought, other-worldly and implausible, sprang from his mind to his lips as he spurt out, "How did you get me here so fast? The pull was so _strong_ and…and…" He couldn't continue on any more; his arms and legs ached from his struggles and his mind was slowly succumbing to the exhaustion that was taking over his body.

The last thing he heard was the girl as she whispered regretfully, "I'm sorry I got you caught up in this. So terribly sorry…"

000

It was dark when he opened his eyes once more. He was sitting on a soft, cushiony thing that felt exactly like his bed and tangled in material that strongly reminded him of his sheets. After a quick scramble, his muscles protesting for reasons he wasn't sure he wanted to believe, for the lamp on his bed side table, he found his assumptions to be true, and that he was in his bedroom.

His clock declared that it was a quarter past midnight and he guessed that the storm had decreased to a drizzle now, only a gentle pattering on the roof and sides of his house. He racked his brain, trying to make sense of something that seemed impossible. It _must _be a dream, God knows women that beautiful only belong in them, but, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember how he had gotten to his bed in the first place.

He _did_, however, recall the figure sitting on the railing of the pier.

Sighing in confusion, the boy ran a hand through his hair and, amid the softness that only came from extensive brushing, an act he never took part in due to sheer laziness, there was a knot. This wasn't an unusual find in his messy locks, but the fact that it was stiff and grimy with sand threw him off. With the awful weather of the past two weeks, he hadn't been on the beach at all, and the only way for sand to become this ingrained in his hair would be if he had been purposely dragging himself through the sand, like-

Like his dream.

Alarmed, the boy jumped to his feet and looked over his body, not knowing what to find but strangely disappointed when everything appeared to be in order. He was in his pajamas, in his bed, in his room, at night. All signs pointed quite clearly, if not _obviously,_ at the idea that he had been dreaming.

But it didn't feel right. It felt so _real_, unlike any dream he had ever had; the wind whipping in his face, the muted roar when he was in the water, and the feel of _her_ worried hands fluttering over his chest, unsure if he was alright. Maybe it wasn't real, but he wished like Hell it was.

He didn't think he'd be able to sleep after that, so he wondered out of his room and toward the living room downstairs. A look in his parent's room as he passed told him that they still hadn't returned from the company party they had left earlier to attend. And a glance in the laundry room as he passed through the kitchen stopped him in his tracks.

Among the many heaps of dirty clothes, there was a small pile tucked in the corner, almost unseen. He felt as if he were unable to control his body as it walked over and bent down to inspect the garments on its own accord. It is what he had remembered wearing earlier that day, a simple pair of jeans and a thick wool sweater, but they were..._wet_… and clinging to the clothes in thick patches was sand.

In a strange daze, he reached out and touched it to make sure it was all real. It is not often that dreams turn out to be reality, but the grainy feel of the damp sand between his fingers assured the boy that this was one of those extraordinary instances. He grabbed hold of his shirt and felt something sharp come in contact with his fingers. He turned it over to the other side and saw something glimmering underneath a layer of sand. After some work of extricating it from the clingy wool of his sweater, he saw that it was a bracelet.

The unexpected find startled him out of his persistence of thinking of it all of as a dream and he studied it in a reverent fashion, gliding his fingers over the ornate and elegant chain. There was one large charm, in the shape of a heart, which was engraved with the letters **I.S.** After some mind-scraping, he recognized the name of his beautiful neighbor.

Sitting down heavily in a nearby chair, he held the bracelet up before his eyes and stared at it, hoping to unravel the mystery that was presented before him. The impossible way she dragged him through the ocean and up the beach, the speed which she was on shore and how she had gotten rid of almost any trace of her entrance, and the incredible beauty seemed to remind him of a story, far back in the corner of his mind that he just couldn't grab a decent hold of.

It slowly surfaced to his mind, reminding him of the day his father had told it to him after spending a day visiting one of his clients in a small town a while away. It had been some Indian reservation, and they had invited his father to a bonfire that night, telling old tribal stories. As he pondered over the possibility of its truth, his sixteen year old heart increased its beat in his chest, unable to wait for the morning when he would see her again.

000

When the boy would make the hesitant run to his neighbor's house in the morning, though, he would find it abandoned.

After she had done her best to clean his body and hair of any trace of what had happened, the girl disposed of his clothes, hoping desperately his mother would just think it was from another day. She hurried to her home, then, packing her rather small amount of clothes in a bag and placing white sheets over all the furniture. She really enjoyed living in this home, and she wished to return to it once more, when the threat of her secret being found out would pass over.

She was at the airport by the time the sun rose, booking the first flight to New York and waiting in the gate restlessly. When she was boarding the plane, she realized she had lost her bracelet somehow, and her heart broke a little. It was the only thing connecting her to her past, _before_ the change. She could vaguely remember her parents buying it for her, as a birthday present. But it was too late to return now. The girl could go back to the beach house and search for it in a few years, not a long time at all.

She settled in her seat and prepared for the flight, unable to shake the sight of emerald green eyes from her brain.

Though she didn't know it, something _had_ happened. Not just an accident like she assumed, but something that would change the entire course of her life in a way that she had never thought possible; so subtle in its beginnings that she moved on without a second thought of the events from that day. Even if she was aware, it would be too late to stop it; the desire had been fixed, and the wish dreamt inside the boy's heart, becoming the reason behind all actions and choices from now on.

That was the first time Isabella Swan met Edward Masen.

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To clear things up: Edward is a sixteen year old human, living a life that is completely normal, or, at least, _**was**_**, and Bella is a seventeen year old vampire. Her past will be cleared up later, so don't worry.**

**Thanks for reading.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Yes! (**_**Pumps fist in air**_**) Your wonderfully nice reviews have given me enough of an ego boost to put this up as fast as I could.**

**Disclaimer: Sadly, **_**Twilight**_** belongs to Stephenie Meyer, not me.**

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Chapter Two:  
An Odd Place for Coincidence and Destiny to Meet

Now, imagine New York City; the towering buildings surrounding you on either side, the classic landmarks you've only seen in movies, and the endless stream of people. It was easy, almost effortless, to get lost in this city, and that's why Bella had chosen to live in its automatic namelessness.

She stepped out of her apartment building, one of those extremely private ones that have no doormen to remember who goes in and, probably never, comes out, also most likely inhabited by crime lords and heads of the mob, and onto the curb, thankful for the tall skyscrapers to provide a constant source of shade. Even on the sunniest of days, it was possible to sidle along the shadow of a structure and be untouched by the rays of the sun. Sometimes you had to look up to even have a clue as to what the weather was like, and Bella found that very endearing.

It was late December, several months after the incident that had taken place in Washington, and the shops were decorated with their finest displays. While walking to the New York Public Library, she would gaze at the beautiful ornaments and scenes that were assembled lovingly together. Along with the warm feeling that settled in everyone around Christmas, she also felt that unwelcome stab of loneliness. Bella looked down to her wrist out of habit and felt the ache grow without the reminder of her long gone family.

But it was better this way. Others of her kind didn't necessarily share her eating habits, or at least the ones she had met did not. Considering the delicate circumstances of her _rebirth_, as she liked to think of it, it was better if she kept to herself, though. Stay quiet and cause no trouble; do nothing to get noticed. Spend your time in perfectly ordinary places, like community colleges, parks, and, her favorite, libraries, and don't do anything to draw attention to yourself.

Avoiding those who sought her was a top priority in Bella's life. She had properties all over the world to run to in a moment's notice and enough bank accounts to let her blend in with those who surrounded her. The one thing that was permanent to her was her name, and she was thankful that they had never found it out because, now that her bracelet was gone, it was her only tie to the time before.

Her current identity was simplistic; she was a girl of rich family, not at all unusual to find in New York, who volunteered at the library. It was boring enough for no one to ask follow-up questions, and not even the most forward of people could break through her careful exterior of complete aloofness. She liked it, too, which was always a plus to any new life. The quiet that seemed permanently engraved in the shelves of the library was calming and she was a useful worker who knew the Dewey Decimal System like the back of her pallid hand. Bella thought that she was so below the radar that no one would suspect her of anything other than being reserved.

Funny that with all her precautions and careful planning, Edward had found her.

It had taken countless hours of computer hacking, but Edward had finally been able to track down his elusive neighbor. Anticipation at seeing her, hearing her voice, and, in his most treasured daydreams, holding her, had been foremost on his mind all this long time. He had schemed all through summer and spent autumn acting like nothing life changing at all had happened to him; he did excellent in school, was captain of the baseball team, tutored two kids in piano, and was the epitome of pleasant charm to his parents.

But always, Bella was the forefront of his mind, constantly plaguing him since the day of the storm, and his want, no, _need_, for her grew as the days and weeks and months passed. Sadly, he could do nothing but wait, and, finally, the opportunity presented itself.

His father was a very successful lawyer in the Seattle area, and with his family wealth and giving nature, he was well known for giving generous donations to various causes. In Chicago, Edward Senior's hometown, a cancer foundation was holding a dinner party, and seeing as his own father had died of it, he was eager to help them. Elizabeth understood the importance and wished to accompany her husband, but, there seemed to be the problem of their son, who was far too young to be stuck in a formal banquet. _But, then again_, they thought to themselves, _he has been so mature lately that we could trust him to be alone for a long weekend. And it was the winter holidays; he wouldn't even need to worry about school._

That's it. Problem solved. Edward was to stay home and tend to the house while his parents went to Chicago.

Not if his plan was to work though. While they were on their flight, Edward packed, bought plane tickets on the internet, called ahead to make reservations at a cheap hotel, and made special care to disconnect the phone lines. Later, when he was in the airport terminal, waiting in line for a quick meal at McDonald's, he called his now frantic parents, who had phoned home and found that the line was dead. Edward lied smoothly and convincingly, telling them that there had been a storm and it must have messed up the phones. He put special stress on how they should just call his cell phone from now on, to avoid the trouble. It was so easy, and went so neatly into place, that Edward couldn't help but congratulate himself.

Edward felt as though he were on some sort of crusade to win the heart of his mysterious Isabella. In his mind, everything had to be right; he needed the proper timing, the right words and the Grand Gesture. He didn't exactly have the Grand Gesture yet, but he was sure he could improvise when he got there. One thing he was sure about, though, was that he had fallen, hard, and he didn't even want to get up.

But it seemed that things only got more difficult after he stepped through security at JFK. The only things he really knew about his mystery girl was her name, the fact that she worked at the New York Public Library, and that she might have a secret that he had normally believed only possible in fairy tales. Even with his extensive skill with computers, he had been unable to find her address, and New York was a very large city.

Again, Edward was forced into the unhappy occupation of waiting, which was next to torture when he was so close to finding her again. He had woke up early and bundled up for the freezing weather, making sure to stop at Starbucks for coffee before he assumed his post on the steps of the library, leaning against one of the stone lions. His eyes searched the crowd eagerly as he sipped his drink, feeling the warmth seep through his body and cursing the snow that had started to fall from the sky.

Perhaps it was luck, maybe it was fate, or it could have been simple coincidence that Bella just happened to arrive soon after he sat down and that Edward was there that day. They didn't see each other at first, the sidewalk was very crowded in the early morning stampede to work, and they were on different sides of the wide stairs, but they were so close.

It was Bella who noticed him first. His hair, such a unique combination of reddish-brown, had caught her attention, and she was plunged into thinking of the boy who had tried to rescue her, something she was worried to find her thoughts straying to more and more frequently. Bella thought is was a trick of her mind at first, but no, it was the same boy as before; a year older, a few inches taller, and he had lost some of the boyishness in his face, his cheekbones more prominent, his jaw chiseled, but she could still see her neighbor who risked his life for her.

As if he felt Bella's gaze, the boy turned to look in her direction and froze. After months of searching for ways to introduce himself and start a conversation, this is what it had come to; a chance meeting on the steps to a library. He had just wanted to see her and make sure he was here, but now all his careful research on what the best flower shops were, and how he would send them to her, was obliterated.

They were caught in a warped kind of staring contest, neither knowing what to do or say, but both wanting some kind of contact, some confirmation of what had happened before. Edward felt his body move without realizing it, walking slowly to where Bella was standing. All that was running through his mind was how she hadn't changed a bit and he could still hear the phantom whisper of her voice in his mind, like music as it asked how he was.

Bella broke out of her daze and ran, seeing that things could turn troublesome if she stayed any longer under the power of his too green eyes. She didn't run as fast as she could, that would be suspicious; she needed to move as frail as she looked, and she had depended upon the crowd to hide her. Maybe he would be so stunned that she could gain a good head start. What Bella hadn't taken into consideration was just how fast the boy was as he wove his way through the people behind her.

He hadn't dithered in chasing after Isabella; he felt that if she were to disappear from his sight he'd loose her all over again and would be forced to start all over, tracking her to another city. No, _this _was the time, _this _was the place; on a dirty and crowded street in New York City. Edward reached out and grabbed her stone wrist, surprised by how easily she broke his hold and sped ever so slightly up.

Determination filled his blood and Edward pushed himself harder, full out sprinting toward her. Making another grab for her arm, he called, "Isabella!"

That seemed to catch her attention and she slowed slightly, turning to look over her shoulder, not even glancing toward where she was going, and instinctively correcting him. "It's Bella," sounded her voice, more like she was singing than stating a simple fact. Suddenly she stopped, making Edward run two strides past her before having to turn around and walk back, his breath coming out in quick gasps of air while she remained perfectly composed. "How did you know my name?"

The fact that she wasn't running away again caused him to grin crookedly with relief and joy. His mind was starting to stitch his plans back together to form this new situation, glad that he could salvage some pieces. "We were neighbors, remember?" He didn't need to feel insecure to if she recalled or not; he could see it in her, now wide with disbelief, golden eyes. "I'm Edward. Edward Masen."

Her full lips twitched up as she said, "Yes, I know. We were neighbors, remember?" Then she composed her face again, one of careful indifference, and something occurred to her. "Did you follow me here?"

The strange part of her question was that she _wanted_ him to say yes, that he had trailed her. Bella looked into his emerald green eyes and couldn't find any rhyme or reason to this insane thought, just that when he looked at her like that she felt like they were alone in their own little universe. She watched him look down at the ground, a light blush spreading across his pale face, in embarrassment. It was several moments before he could meet her eyes again and he couldn't find any other explanation than a simple "Yes, I did."

Edward's heart soared when he didn't see disgust, but delight grace her angelic face. He ventured a step further, and was surprised when she did the same, closing the distance between them. Even in the calamity of smells and sounds, he could smell the wonderful fragrance that clouded around her and she could hear his heartbeat as it speeded up into double time. Time stopped as they studied each other's faces, wondering why it had all of a sudden seemed so vital and important to memorize the other. Edward leaned even further in and reached out, taking one of her hands in his gloved ones and pressing it to the side of his face, mesmerized by the silky feel of her skin.

It was heavenly for Bella; the warmth, the trust in his eyes, the feeling of complete serenity that spread through her. She wanted him to wrap his arms around her, embrace who she was, and what she _is_, with that gentle expression never leaving his face. She wanted to tell him everything, to give herself to a person she barely even knew. She wanted…

But it couldn't be about want. She knew what she _needed_; to get away from him. He had somehow found her, and now he, as well as anyone else who would try to get close to her, was in danger. Grave danger.

Bella whipped her hand back, shocking the blissful tranquility off Edward's face. She floundered for words to erase his painful expression, but the best she could come up with was, "Oh, Edward. I don't mean to keep putting you in jeopardy. I-I'm sorry. _Please_ believe me." Bella gave him one last look, trying to remember but not fully understanding why her heart told her to, then turned away and ran.

Edward was so surprised he couldn't move at first. But the certainty that she was going to walk off the face of the earth again put his feet into action. "Bella!" he called, even now thinking how well the name suited her over Isabella. "Come back!" He pushed harder, flying down the street and pushing away anyone who was in his path. But no matter how fast he ran, she was still gaining distance, the top of her chestnut hair bobbing further and further away.

He didn't know how long he kept going. After he couldn't see her again, he continued, telling himself that she was just around the corner, right ahead of him, but she never was. She just vanished. Again.

_But what did I expect?_ he thought furiously at himself as he achingly made his way to a stoop, breathing like a race horse. _I basically _stalked_ her. It wasn't as if she'd come up to me and be happy that I'm some creepy kid who wouldn't leave her alone. I'm stupid, I'm insane, I'm weird, I'm…still going to try._

But first thing's first. He was in a city he had never been in, obviously far away from the only landmark he could use to locate his hotel; the library. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his wallet and opened it up. _Damn_, it only had the frighteningly low amount of four dollars and twenty three cents. Before he could plunge, yet again, into a pit of despair, Edward looked around and saw a bank, glowing like a prize on a game show, like the gates of Heaven, like Bella's eyes…

No. Mustn't think of that. Not now.

He sprinted across the street, earning a healthy number of curses and middle fingers in the process, and came crashing in through the bank doors like he owned the place. It was rather empty so he managed to slide into a pretty good spot behind a woman who was telling her little boy to stop licking the line dividers.

Plan wise, Edward could only be certain that he needed cab money. Any thought of what came after swirled and faded into the realm of uncertainty, where finding Bella again was the same chance as playing poker with Bigfoot. Thoughts of his original plan of sending flowers might work, but he felt that he ought to check if she was still even in the city. Or the state. Or the country, for that matter.

His thoughts strayed over to what she had said, before she left. How could she possibly put him in any peril, though? Unless what he had suspected was actually true, another thing he shouldn't think about but did anyways, then he had no reason to be cautious around her. Right?

Before he could delve further, the loud _bang _of the entrance door slamming open caught his attention. Everyone in the bank looked over their shoulders with, first idle curiosity and annoyance, then fear and panic. The man, dressed in black from head to toe with a ski mask that only let people see his murky blue eyes, had a gun, and from what Edward had seen on the news, this never amounted to a good thing.

"Keep your hands where I can see them!" barked the man as he hefted up a large gun that looked like it belonged in a Bruce Willis movie. Then, in what Edward assumed was normal bank robber etiquette, the man's eyes swept across the frozen people as if he were weighing them as enemies, Edward couldn't help but notice how the man's eyes lingered on him, and said, "Don't make any wrong moves."

Like it was opposite day, the woman Edward had been waiting in line behind promptly started shrieking as she clutched her little boy to her. "No! Don't hurt me and my baby! Please, I'll do anything!" she wept.

Though his slim sense of self-preservation ordered him to stay quiet and unassuming, his chivalrous tendencies could not be suppressed. He half-turned and faced the hysterical woman, gently grabbing her wrist and saying in his most sweet voice, "Ma'am, if we cooperate and keep quiet, I'm sure he wouldn't harm you or your child. Don't worry; the cops will be here soon enough." He had tried to say it softly and not draw attention to them, but when he looked away again every person in the bank was looking at them, the other bank-goers with compassion, the gunman with agitation.

He stepped toward Edward, his steps measured and menacing, but Edward stood tall, not letting the fear that was seeping into his bones show on his face. He quickly found the muzzle of the gun digging into the chest of his thick pea coat, and the gunman sneered with smugness as a ripple of dread made Edward's body shake. "What did you say kid?"

But Edward's mouth had gone dry, seeming to sap all motion out of his jaw. Before the silence could stretch out any longer, though, the woman let out another yelp. "Leave the boy alone, you _monster_!" she screeched. "Just take what you want and _leave_!"

The gunman was surprised, Edward could tell. His eyes flickered about him the people around him, all angry, all hating the very core of his soul. This wasn't how it was in movies; people were supposed to quiver with fear at the sight of him. They weren't supposed to fight back. Hoping to regain some of the fear he had obtained before the boy started talking, the man pointed the gun at a more fragile target; the little boy in the crazy woman's arms.

Edward seemed to know what he was thinking from the desperate look that crossed the man's covered face. He couldn't feel the muzzle in his chest any longer and he saw the gunman shift at the torso, turning toward something that had just started to helplessly cry in his mother's arms. Only one thought was racing through Edward's mind, _He's going to shoot the boy_. It was the first time in months that Bella was not in his thoughts, and if she had been, he might not have done was his body had instinctively started.

It was a quick movement, born from many baseball games and friendly competition with friends. He jerked from his still, and safe, position, to taking one long and fast stride to the gunman, his hands reaching out deftly for the gun.

That speed was what made the gunman turn back to the green-eyed boy's direction. He had seen a sudden movement and was startled. He hadn't even meant to shoot anyone; not at the beginning as he plotted in his crappy apartment. But, despite of that promise to himself, his finger tightened on the trigger, and a deafening blast exploded in the room moments before the guard came back from his break and tackled him to the floor.

Edward fell to the ground with a thud. He was aware of the blood, trickling out of that spot in his chest that felt like someone had decided to fire a cannon at his heart. He could hear the voices, the panic, the screaming. A voice, far away and fading fast, was yelling for an ambulance, but he couldn't open his eyes to see if it was the woman, like he thought it was.

With a tremendous amount of pain, Edward inched his hand, which had been lying helplessly beside him on the ground, into his left pocket. After more stinging effort, he managed to pull a cool, chain from it. He felt it with his fingertips, trying to imagine the letters inscribed in the heart-shaped charm. This was his only link to Bella, and his last. He had screwed everything up to play hero.

He could last remember the ceiling of the ambulance before he was in a state of semi-consciousness, flocculating between the painlessness of the dark to a brilliantly lit and achingly agonizing room he couldn't recognize. It was blinding; white with a light as bright as the sun right before his out of focus eyes. Cold and soothing fingers probed his upper body, but they offered little relief to the torture.

Then there was another black patch, and it was sweet relief.

It ended too soon, bringing back all he had thought he had left behind. He pushed past the distracting pain and could hear the slow and steady beat of a machine, smell a sterile clean and, when his eyes adjusted to the light, see a man with eyes as golden as his hair in a white doctor's coat.

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**I am sad to say that I may not update as fast as I would like to now that school has started up again. But, never fear, I fully intend to use my free time to write up new chapters for you lovely people.**

**Until next time.**


	3. Chapter 3

**I would like to get down on my knees and kiss the ground that all you wonderful people walk on. Metaphorically, of course. The reviews were lovely and a great source of motivation, thanks.**

**Disclaimer: **_**Twilight**_** belongs to Stephenie Meyer. I'm just like the drag queen that imitates her for your entertainment.**

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Chapter Three:  
Where Matters of Life and Death are Debated

Upon opening the door to the room, Carlisle's heart fell. The boy, whose heroism was already spreading like wildfire through the news stations, seemed so weak as he lay on the hospital bed. Carlisle looked down at the charts in his hands and frowned in disappointment. The bullets had, at such a close range, blasted through the boy's chest, shattering four ribs. Luckily, it had just barely missed his heart, but unluckily, one of the bits of bone had pierced the boy's left lung. They had done what they could to help for now, but he didn't have much longer.

The doctors of the hospital were caught between moving on with surgery or waiting to see if he regained any strength. If they went into surgery now, it was almost guaranteed that the boy would die, but who knew how much longer they could wait. So, until then, they just kept him as comfortable of they could, and prayed he'd make it through.

A quickening of breath and the heart monitor's sharp rise in rhythm caused Carlisle to run to the boy's side. "B-_Bella_?" he gasped in his dry and raspy voice. "Come _back_ to me…" His eyes flew open and searched the room wildly for something that wasn't there, no matter how frantically he wished. His vivid green eyes finally fell on Carlisle, a look of puzzlement joining the pain and loss already written across his face.

"It's good to see you awake," Carlisle greeted kindly. "We couldn't find your wallet, but this was in your hand when the paramedics got you." He held up a glinting bracelet and the boy's eyes immediately focused on it, seeming to gain more life and consciousness from the mere sight of it. The boy's hand had been weakly clutching the bed sheets, but with effort he turned it palm-up. Carlisle got the meaning and curled the length of chain into his open hand. "Would you mind telling me your name?" he asked.

"Edward Masen," the boy muttered, all of a sudden distracted by something, the bracelet which he had found so important before was now forgotten and a far off look blossomed on his face.

"Do you live around here, Edward?"

"No, I don't," he shortly replied before his attention was once again on the bracelet, which he tightened his fist around. Carlisle wondered if he had given him too much morphine for the pain and it was doing something to Edward's thought process.

"Well," Carlisle tried, "I must tell you that you have become quite the hero. In fact-" He looked down at the boy in the hospital bed, expecting to see the same preoccupied expression as he looked at the chain in his clenched fist, but instead saw Edward studying him with surprising sharpness. He seemed to take in the golden eyes, pale skin, and incredible features with familiarity. Like he'd seen them somewhere before.

The sense of knowing in those green eyes threw Carlisle's doctor chatter off and instantly set his barriers up. He headed toward the door, saying over his shoulder, "I should be going now, Edward, but Doctor White will be here soon to tell you about your condition."

He was almost clean out the door when a voice stopped him. "Wait," it pleaded with desperately determined hope. Edward coughed weakly at the effort but soon resumed in a hoarse tone. "Am I dying?"

The simplicity of the question, and the feeling that the poor boy already knew the answer to it, urged Carlisle to nod hesitantly. "There's a strong chance. If we wait too long for surgery, your lungs can give out, but if we rush you to it, you probably won't be strong enough to make it through. For the meantime, we have given you a high dose of morphine to take the edge off the pain."

Edward nodded with acceptance. "Is there anything you can do?"

Carlisle strode toward the bed and took the boy's free hand in is own, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "We can only wait until the proper decision is apparent." _But it might be too late, _he almost added but Carlisle held his tongue.

"No," Edward corrected, his voice still strained but his eyes blazing like emeralds. "Is there anything _you_ can do? And I mean only _you_. You're different; like B- like no other doctor here. You can help me in a way _Doctor White_ is incapable of." The speech seemed to have drained Edward, for his hand grew limp and he collapsed back in his bed, cringing with the pain from his chest.

Carlisle stared in amazement. He _knew_. But how? In Carlisle's childhood, where goblins and fairies were everyday beliefs, it would have been normal for him to suspect, but _now_, in the age of technology and denial, a modern youth couldn't possibly figure it out. Someone couldn't have told them- "Edward, who is Bella?" Carlisle asked, thinking back to what Edward had almost said: _You're different; like Bella_.

Edward met his gaze levelly and answered, "Someone I'm not going to give up on this easily." He didn't elaborate any further, but when the doctor's silence stretched on for over a minute Edward told him, "It is wrong of me to demand something this big and important out of you, but, literally, my _life_ depends on it."

"But you could survive this," Carlisle cried compassionately. "Why would you give up your human life when there's still a chance?"

Edward gestured to the numerous machines around him and raised a weary eyebrow. "Look, I've seen enough movies to know that if you have this many tubes in you, you're gonna die." He then broke out into a series of hacking coughs, unintentionally underlining his point. "I _need_ to live, doc. And it's just not because I'm afraid of death. I have to find her; it's like there's this string tied around my heart and connected to hers. The further away she is, the more my heart hurts, and if she goes too far, the string might break. If that happens…let's just say I don't think my heart could handle the pain that goes with the thought that she doesn't want me. The most I can do is tell her how I feel, but I can't do that if I'm dead. Please, doc." His voice gave out at the end, wavering with exhaustion and effort before breaking during his final plea. He didn't have much longer, and the decision was all in Carlisle's capable, but resisting hands.

With all that he stood for, he wouldn't intentionally turn someone if they still had a chance to live. But Edward's possibility was fading fast; his heart beat was erratic, speeding then slowing with frightening irregularity, his breathing was becoming more labored and painful, and, from the way Edward clutched his bandaged chest, he guessed that even the morphine couldn't fight off the pain. He wouldn't be alive much longer.

Hoping he'd change his mind, Carlisle asked, "Are you _positive_? You know about the pain of the transformation?"

"Pain," Edward repeated. "No, I didn't know, but I don't mind. What is the process of it exactly?" he asked in only a mere whisper, his breathing becoming louder than his speech. "Do you just bite me? Do we have to wait for a full moon? Or do we have to do that morbid sharing of the blood?"

"I bite you," Carlisle said, disconcerted that Edward's face only showed easy acceptance, not fear, "and inject venom into your bloodstream."

"That sounds efficient." He cleared his throat to try and get rid of the rasp of his voice and was surprised to find a rush of blood filling his mouth. Not even his critical state of health could stop him from seeing the humor in that outcome. _Not even a vampire_, he thought, _and I'm already drinking blood._

"Do you mind if I ask you a question, Edward?"

Edward gave a grim smile and wheezed, "I see no reason why the man who's killing me can't ask a question. Shoot." Carlisle realized that joking was Edward's way to try and relieve the stress of the situation, and he rewarded the optimism with a smile of his own.

"How exactly did you discover the secret?" That little piece of missing information had been hanging at the edge of the doctor's mind, incessantly murmuring suspicions about the girl Edward had spoken about.

"Oh," Edward brushed off as nonchalantly as someone who could only speak as loud as a mouse could. "My father has acquaintances over on an Indian Reservation, La Push, I believe, and they would tell him their tribal stories about the flood and their 'Cold Ones.' I didn't think of it immediately when I saw her, but she is just how they had described. It was easy to add two and two together after that."

Carlisle nodded his head and, after seeing that he had no more ways to stall, sighed. "Well, if you are ready, I suppose this is it." He tentatively took the Edward's wrist and lowered his head. Just as he was about to take the first bite, Edward stopped him.

"Wait," he whispered. "I want to thank you, doc. You won't regret it, I promise." The ringing sincerity in his ragged voice touched Carlisle's motionless heart. _No,_ he thought while taking the first bite, _I have a feeling that I won't._ By the time he had injected venom in his other wrist, ankles and neck, Edward's irregular breathing turned to screams of torture as the explosive hurt that he had been gallantly handling tripled.

Doctor Carlisle Cullen stumbled backwards into a chair, resting his pale forehead on his one hand and pulling his phone out of his pocket with the other. He listened to the ringing with apprehension, looking at the struggling boy in the hospital bed. Carlisle heard a sweet voice on the other end of the line and gathered what emotional strength was left in his body. "Esme," he said. "You and the family ought to get here as soon as possible."

000

"Eddie?" Elizabeth hesitated, re-tucking a strand of auburn hair behind her ear and looking over at her husband with worry more than apparent in her green eyes. "I don't want to be one of those mothers that fret over their child constantly, but do you think he is okay? I just have this _feeling_," her hand unconsciously rested at her heart for a moment, perhaps wondering why it felt like something was missing, "that our Edward isn't."

Eddie ripped his eyes away from the road and faked ease. "Darling, I'm sure he is. You know boys today; always forgetting things. He probably just lost his cell phone." It was a bad excuse, they both knew Edward never forgot where anything was, but it was better to lie than to acquaint their selves with the dark shadow of dread that was spilling over into their thoughts.

They hadn't heard from Edward for three days. Elizabeth had been growing more and more worried as time passed, trying her best to keep a positive face and failing miserably when it came to deceiving her husband. He and their son were the only people who could read the unstoppable Elizabeth Masen's façade. She wanted to be strong, but her son, her dear sweet boy, could, as her heart was so certain of, be in trouble. Besides her husband, Edward was her most treasured and wonderful person she knew and she didn't know what would happen if what she feared were to come true.

The drive to their home seemed longer than she remembered; the roads stretching on for miles when it was only a few yards, the clock's infernal ability to not move any faster, and, worst of all, how the simple length of her driveway was unbearable. Before the car even slowed, Elizabeth jumped out and ran to the front door, desperately wishing that the house wasn't as empty as it looked.

"Edward?" she called from the door, noticing that her husband was right behind her, an equal expression of hope on his face. "Honey? We're back!" The false cheerfulness faded from her voice. "Edward? Please be here." She darted into the kitchen, searching for any sign that he was home. But it all looked exactly like they left it, no food left out, no dirty dishes, just that horrible feeling of not being lived in for a long weekend.

A loud crash came from the study, startling Elizabeth. She ran in, hoping to see her son on the computer or sitting in that ridiculously studious way of his with a book in hands, but only saw Eddie, sprawled out on the ground and readjusting his glasses. "Eddie, are you okay, sweetheart?" She kneeled on his side and brushed away his thick black hair from his forehead, checking for any signs of pain.

"Oh, I'm fine, Lizzie. I just seemed to have tripped over something…" he scrambled to his knees and pulled something out of the tangled mess that was his feet. "What the Hell…?" Eddie turned to face his wife with puzzlement on his face. "Why is the telephone line disconnected?"

While her husband reconnected it with confused mutterings, something in Elizabeth's mind clicked into place. She felt like a ghost as she left the study and climbed the steps to Edward's room. Her hand rose mechanically to open his door, feeling a shudder run down her spine at the ominous creak.

His room looked like someone had left it in a hurry. The drawers of his dresser were open, his closet door hit the wall with a bang caused by a gust of wind from the open windows, and his desk was wiped clean of all the things he normally kept there, like his keys, watch, wallet, phone, ipod, and whatever book he was currently reading at the time. His bed though, looked like no one had slept in it in days.

Wishing her suspicion was wrong, but testing it anyhow, she fell to her knees and lifted the skirts of Edward's bed, looking into the darkness underneath and seeing that the suitcase he kept under there was gone.

With a strangled exclamation of disbelief, Elizabeth flew out of the room, not even able to call her husband's name through the haze of panic that was taking grip. She had made it as far as the kitchen before the phone rang, shrill and startling. Elizabeth leapt for it, fumbling with the receiver before breathlessly asking, "Edward? Is that you?"

On the other side there was the sound of someone deciding between hanging up or continuing on. After what must have been a strenuous mental debate, a throat, decidedly rough and very un-Edward like, was cleared. "Uh, Mrs. Masen?"

Elizabeth felt a tear of disappointment run down her cheek. It wasn't her boy. "Yes? Who is this?"

"Well…my name is Ronald Farren. I'm police chief of the NYPD, and I have news for you." There would have been an awkward pause in which Ronald would look around his office and try and find any kind of words to form in a coherent sentence that would, while showing the gratitude of the city, display to her their deep and undisputable sadness toward her loss. To his relief though, she interrupted.

"Have you found my boy, Officer Farren? Have you found Edward?"

Okay, maybe he wasn't that relieved. Ronald shifted uncomfortably in his seat and tried to tune out the hope in her voice. "Mrs. Masen…I'm afraid there has been an…_accident _with your son…There was an attempted bank robbery and the man had a gun. He was going to shoot a little boy, but your son jumped in front of him… He died a hero…"

Eddie heard the clatter of the phone being dropped to the floor and ran just in time to catch his wife as she collapsed into sobs. He didn't even need to ask, he just buried his face in her hair and held on to her shaking form as tight as he could, letting the tears that were stinging his eyes run freely.

Officer Farren hung up his phone with a sigh. After a moment, he closed the file that had been compiled on the incident and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes with his rough hands. He had had to tell many people many unfortunate things in his position, but this kid had been a hero, and it hammered his work-scarred heart just a bit more. Ronald opened his eyes to see the man still sitting on the other side of his desk, his hands calmly folded on his lap and a somber expression on his face. "Are you sure," Ronald asked wearily, "that you did everything you could?"

The man stood up, an odd feeling that Ronald couldn't place making his way to his eyes. Officer Farren had been a New York cop for decades, and he always prided himself on figuring people out, but, no matter how much he strained his mind, this man in the white coat was a puzzle to Ronald.

"Yes," the doctor said as he pulled on a winter jacket and looped a scarf around his pale neck, "I did everything within my power. Goodbye Officer."

Ronald watched Doctor Cullen leave his office, making his secretary's jaw drop in the middle of her typing, and rush out the door like he was in a hurry for something. Ronald didn't want to be suspicious; the doctor was a good man and probably didn't want to be away from the hospital for too long a time. But something just tugged at the edge of Officer Farren's gut, something he always listened to with the same certainty that told him there were twenty four hours in a day and seven days in the week.

He shook the thought from his head, feeling ashamed of himself. There's nothing odd about Doctor Cullen. Nothing odd at all.

000

Closing the door to the room that was set up for the boy, Alice pranced down the staircase to the living room, where she heard Jasper's low and even breathing. He was sitting on the edge of a chair and resting his chin on his fist with obvious contemplation. At Alice's entrance, he raised his head in greeting and looked once again into the explosion of city beyond the window. Jasper's brow was furrowed, his eyes sharply focused on something he couldn't even see, and a frown appeared on his marble like face. He was tasting the atmosphere around him, and not liking something he felt.

Alice moved quickly across the room and took a seat in her husband's lap, gently tracing a scar that ran along the side of his face with a finger before looking into his eyes and tilting her head to the side in a questioning manner. _What's wrong_, the gesture asked. _Is there anything I can do to help_, her feather light touch said.

He only shook his head in response, not answering her question, but telling her that he didn't yet know how to phrase his answer. A cry sounded from the floor above, making the silent pair look toward the ceiling simultaneously before meeting eyes once more. Alice cocked a perfect eyebrow, Jasper sighed.

Pausing a moment to collect his thoughts, Jasper said, "He doesn't think of the pain as anyone in the process of changing does. They feel fear, regret, sometimes revulsion, but the boy is…_welcoming _it." He met his wife's gaze with confusion. "How can that be? He keeps going through the same loop of emotions, like he's reminding himself of something. First, it seems as though he diligently will plan, then he allows himself to hope, and then there is this overwhelming feeling of love." Now it was his turn to tilt his head, asking her if she knew anything about it.

Alice shrugged. "I just see him searching. Not any one area, but hundreds of different cities and places. He's looking for something. Or some_one_…" She trailed off, diving into her own thoughts about this boy, Edward's, future while Jasper pondered over his motivations and purpose. Both were getting nowhere fast, circling around the obvious with a dismissed wave of a mental hand, and were interrupted by the _ding_ of the private elevator.

There was the silence that consisted of Esme running down the stairs and to the front of the opening in a split second before she urgently grabbed her husband's hand. "Carlisle," she said as breathlessly as someone who didn't need to breathe could manage, "the change is coming to an end."

They both ran upstairs, leaving Alice and Jasper to their private world of what-ifs and whys.

000

First, there was the noise. It blossomed within Edward, filling every cavity of his being with screaming and beeping and shuffling. Every sound was noticeable and had a name; here there was a sneeze, there was a pigeon ending its flight on the building across from theirs, and over in the distance a judge banged his gavel with all the strength he had in his bony arm, trying take command over a court that had dissolved into nothing more than a bickering bunch of children.

There was also the words he felt he shouldn't be hearing. They were private things, not the kind that would normally be said aloud, and Edward was surprised to learn a man somewhere on the street must have been muttering about his guilt over committing homicide and the fact that no one even paid attention shocked him. Yes, it was New York, but there was indifference, and then there was callous idiocy.

All of these different noises should have crowded his head and given it over to a very painful headache, but Edward was surprised to find that he could handle it naturally, with enough room for him to think on his own with ease.

Second, there was the thirst. He opened his eyes and sat upright so fast he thought that he had left some of his organs on the bed, but no, again there was that natural feeling that this is the way things ought to be. Edward was about to go off and explore what that wonderful aroma was when two bodies collided roughly with both of his sides.

The one on the right was a particularly bulky man with curly hair and forearms that would rival Popeye's, while the one on the left was a surprisingly pretty blonde with a tilt of regal-ness to her chin. If Edward wasn't so preoccupied with the burning in his throat, he might have thought how odd it was that he could hear them talk even though they never opened their mouths.

Anger at his restrainers rose in Edward's body like a wave, and he growled loudly at the two figures, trying to move his arms and finding that they were locked in position on either side of his head as he was forced to lie down on the bed once more. Hands found his snarling mouth and opened it with ease, forcing something in Edward's mouth. Sweet, hot liquid poured out, giving the fiery monster what it wanted and letting it subside into satisfaction. It didn't taste as good as the other things had smelled, but Edward was thankful for it.

Now that the hunger was somewhat in control, Edward settled. The two people holding him slowly let go, letting him sit up at the end of the bed but keeping a close guard in case he lost control.

Focusing his mind from the distracting blast of color and interesting new depth everything around him had, Edward looked at the four people in front of him. Along with his guards, there was a lovely woman with a kind smile and long, caramel colored hair and the doctor, looking at Edward with welcome. He could hear two more people (or, due to the lack of heartbeat, creatures), downstairs, talking about him in two different threads that had no regard for what the other said and continued on in their own train of thought like they didn't even hear the other person.

Turning his gaze to the only familiar face in the room, Edward looked at the doctor with blazing eyes that burned with the schemes of eternity Edward had planned, and asked, amid the roar of people, "So, Carlisle, I'm a vampire now?" The voice was much too smooth and velvet-like to belong to him, but it seemed to fit how Edward felt now; strong and sleek and filled with power.

The doctor's golden eyes flickered for a moment before understanding with rapid clarity how Edward had learned a name never given to him. He gave a brief nod and answered with a simple _yes_ that could be heard by none other than the young boy. Edward smiled a beaming white and utterly content smile before plunging into the next step, listening to what Carlisle and the others said without any voice. "Good," he said.

**

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Next up, we hear from Bella again…


	4. Chapter 4

**My lame reason for taking long is that I couldn't quite find the right person to tell what was happening in the last bits. There were practically six different drafts until I finally got one that fit. I hope you like it.**

**Disclaimer: Never have and, much to my disappointment, never **_**will**_** own **_**Twilight**_**.**

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Chapter Four:  
Where Valuable Information Reaches a Desperate Party

In the snow-covered vastness of Greenland, there lay a small, discreet house. One would naturally overlook such a plain residence, but if a much too curious passerby were to examine it further, they would see that this deceivingly simple home was built more like a bomb shelter than an eccentric getaway from basically any human contact for two hundred miles in every direction. It could survive a nuclear holocaust or a siege; it was made to last, and to keep those inside safe from any threat imaginable.

Well, _almost_any threat; sadly, the mind and heart couldn't be protected by the reassuringly strong stone walls. This often overlooked fact was thrown into new context for Bella as she burst out of the house in a daze, automatically grabbing a hold of her emergency bag of clothes and identification before locking the door behind her. Her mind was still incapable of any thought beyond the recurring words from the Internet: _Heroic Teenager, Edward Masen, was Shot in a Bank Robbery Only to Die Several Days Later from Lung Failure._

It had been a stupid mistake on Bella's part, looking up Edward when she only knew it would lead to no good. But, really, how could she predict for this to happen? In the back of her mind, Bella had always told herself that he was safe where he was, away from her. That at least had brought her some self-righteousness to her self ordered exile. But curiosity, something she had fought off for fourteen months without any end in sight, had conquered Bella, just as it had with Pandora.

During the solitary months, she found herself overwhelmed with thoughts of Edward, and instead of fading over time, the odd ache that accompanied her musings of him grew more and more. She didn't understand the all consuming urge that came over her while reading the article to fall to her knees and cry. She felt sick with her tearless sobs, and they did nothing to relieve the hole that was increasing within her, taking everything until she was just an empty shell of want.

_Want_, she thought bitterly as she started her car. _It used to be such a common concept to me, but now, I can do nothing but just that._ _I _want_ to see Edward's face, smiling and happy. I _want_ to be held in his arms. I _want_ him to tell me that everything is fine, no _perfect_, because we are together. _And, sadly, none of Bella's wants would be fulfilled. Edward was dead, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Blankly, Bella drove to the airport, calling to book a ticket before her brain could catch up with her heart's self-abusing reasoning. She was going back to Washington, as close to Edward as she could possibly get without drastic measures. Her brain questioned the choice, but her heart remained silent in its own grieving.

It wasn't until she was on the plane that it all came crumbling apart and the dark pain of understanding flooded through her body like a wave, poisoning everything with the sick truth of what it meant.

000

Lucy Nichals, a stewardess for just about ten years, had seen the pretty girl from 5A rush out of her seat, although the seatbelt sign had distinctly been on, and toward the bathroom. She got up to chase after her and a bout of turbulence sent Lucy to her knees when the plane shook, but the girl only stopped outside the bathroom door, resting her head against the wall and wrapping her arms around her stomach.

Lucy finally regained balance and put a reassuring hand on the girl's surprisingly cold shoulder. "Honey," she asked, "what's wrong?"

Though the girl was shaking because she was, Lucy assumed, weeping, when she turned there wasn't a trace of wetness on her angel-like face. Lucy was almost in a trance by the large golden eyes, filled with a sadness she couldn't even begin to comprehend, and the melodic voice that was so clear and bell-like as the girl bawled, "Why did he have to die?" The girl sunk down to her knees, making what would have been an awkward fumble of movement seem as graceful as a ballerina's much performed solo. "I l-_loved_ him _so much _and_ I never even knew it_."

Lucy looked around for some kind of help as to what to say to the heartbroken girl and realized that from where they were, in between the business class and economy class seating, for _everyone_ to see. The girl seemed to see that too, because she got up and quickly locked herself in the bathroom, the _unoccupied_ sign turning to _occupied_ with lightning fast speed.

Feeling her maternal side kick in, Lucy knocked gently on the door, calling, "Miss? I know it seems hard to deal with it right now, but why don't you come with to the kitchen, where I can get you some coffee and we can talk it out?" Lucy held her breath when she heard the gasping sob of the girl turn muffled, like she was holding something over her mouth to keep herself quiet.

The door unlocked and opened to a small slit, showing only as much as her eye and the small expanse of snowy white skin underneath. The girl only looked at Lucy with that odd colored eye before a voice sounded through the gap. "It is very kind of you to offer," it said, shockingly monotone for its sweet lilting quality. "But I just wish to be alone now. Thank you." Then the door closed once more, leaving Lucy with mixed feelings of sadness, unease and pity.

Nevertheless, she had kept a wary eye on the bathroom door for the remainder of the flight. But Lucy didn't see the girl come out of the bathroom until the very end, and even then it was just a glimpse of long brown hair in a crowd before she was gone.

When everyone, passenger and staff, had filed out of the plane, Lucy could only sit silently in one of the chairs, thinking over what had happened in a confused manner. After an hour's meditation, she called her husband and told him that she loved him more than anything else in the world, and that she was sorry for the fight they had earlier. She decided that love was a much too precious and powerful thing to throw away on petty details.

000

Bella was finally able to pull herself back together for the flight from Boston to Seattle, but the hurt remained, never fading, never growing, just taking her over.

When she arrived in Seattle, it was a choice between two homes she had in the area; a tiny, unnoticeable house in the small town of Forks, or her beach house. Bella wanted to go back to the beach house, to see the same green eyes that Edward had alive in his mother and the same facial features shared in father and son. She knew that there would be pain with these little bits of remembrance, but she would welcome it, bury herself in its comforting depths. But his parents were there and, mourning or no, they would recognize how young Isabella Swan hadn't changed in the two years she had been gone. So it was off to Forks.

Driving at break-neck speeds in a rental car she probably had no intention to give back, Bella worried at what lay in that town. She had bought the house in the eighties and found the quiet atmosphere suitable to her needs. It would have been like one of the other countless houses she owned across the world, had it not been for the white manor she had found while hunting one day. It looked abandoned, but she could smell the strong, heady scent of other vampires still clinging to the place. She had left town the next day, terrified at the thought of being found.

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to go walking into a place where another vampire could be, but the pull was undeniable, and the dejected, brokenhearted Bella saw no choice but to follow it.

She drove on and, soon enough, a sign loomed in the distance, welcoming her to Forks.

000

Strains of piano floated up to Alice's room, where she was laying on the next to useless bed. Today, the chords and crescendos were restless. The skilled hands roamed across the ivory keys with more ease than he could accomplish in reality, hunting down notes and bringing together a harmony that could clearly tell Alice what he was thinking about.

Edward wished to leave, and badly. He didn't want people to notice, didn't want the family to think he was ungrateful, but they all saw it in how he would look out the window with longing, thinking of far off places and potential hiding places. The boy was a ghost as he paced slowly throughout the house in Denali; mentally drained from the extreme training he insisted upon, emotionally wasted by the internal tearing he felt at his seams the longer he didn't see her, the more space that went between them. He was dwindling in front of the Cullens, his only spark coming from the fierce determination and need that raged and consumed him. If he were to go much longer without her, it would drive him insane.

He tried his best to keep it hidden, but it always found ways to seep through. When spending time with all the new editions of the family, it seemed as though each bit of knowledge they provided was saved, every name and place catalogued carefully away for later use, creating his very own vampire version of a world map. Every failed test of controlling his thirst built up his frustration and set back his plans to walk through a world full of temptation.

Of all the family, only Carlisle knew what he really wanted. But Alice suspected.

When Edward had first been changed, Alice had watched the future very carefully to see how their new family member would take the change of lifestyle. While sorting through the images, one that she wasn't familiar with popped up, as brief and flickering as a candle before being blown out by a gust of wind. It had been a girl of their kind, walking through a snowy landscape with a look of unwilling purpose on her delicate face.

She hadn't seen anything of her since, and discarded it as a fluke. But something about those rare times when Edward would lose himself in thought, his fingers would run across the piano in such lovely sweetness, like he as thinking of something so ethereal it couldn't be put into simple words but embodied through melody, not to mention how he so unwaveringly denied Tanya's advances, led Alice to believe it wasn't adventure or foreign places he was looking for, it was a woman.

Knowing his little talent would be immensely inconvenient in the fact that she wanted to hide this information, Alice kept it to herself, not even telling her Jasper, and only pondered it over while Edward was out hunting.

Now, as the frantic music slowed, turning into a sadder, more longing version of one of his tinkling and loving tunes, Alice's thoughts were unintentionally strayed toward the face of the girl. She had seemed so lonely in the frozen tundra around her, so desperately lonely. Downstairs, the composition was venturing into the high notes, becoming a fragile and wistful lullaby.

Even with Edward on the floor below, Alice couldn't stop the new insight to the future from coming. The girl was attached to her thoughts, opening doors to Alice's mind and catapulting her into a small car, clean and impersonal like only a rental car can be. Behind the wheel, hands gripped into fists, Alice could see the same girl as before only, instead of a look of doing the right thing, she looked as though her heart had been ripped out, torn to pieces and stepped on a few times. Her golden eyes stared aimlessly ahead of her, no thought of where she was going or what she'll do, she was just a shell. What she had once been was long gone now, taken away by something traumatic.

Outside her car, on a lonely freeway, a sign rose out of the snow-covered vegetation and greeted her with fake cheer and a cheap picture…

Then it ended, jolting Alice back into reality with a sudden end. The brief episode had only left her with familiarity at the name of the town and a parting look at her sad eyes.

An abrupt clattering of wrong notes and conflicting sounds brought Alice's attention to the lower floor. She listened as the piano bench slide backward, grating against the wooden floor and most likely leaving gashes, and could only faintly hear the sound of feet making brief, almost nonexistent, contact with the ground before Edward was standing in her doorway, his now topaz eyes wide with disbelief. His mouth opened and closed a few times before a strangled sound emitted. "B-_Bella_?" he questioned incredulously. "You saw _Bella_?"

000

Jasper turned the page of his book sullenly, shifting slightly on the stump he was now sitting upon. It seemed childish, hiding in the woods so he could reflect on a brilliant military strategist's memoirs without feeling what Edward was always feeling, but he just couldn't stand it any more. The boy was a large black hole in Jasper's emotional field; emitting overwhelming amounts of yearning, agitated, and miserable angst into the world.

Knowing that Edward's heart was broken and his soul strained, Jasper tried not to resent him. Even if he did want to, he knew that blaming the boy would be hypocritical; he was driven by a love as life shattering and unflinching as Jasper's own love toward Alice, and if whatever had happened to separate Edward had happened to him, he would have done the same.

But, as the foot deep snow seeped through his clothes, Jasper allowed himself a dash of bitterness.

Probing cautiously further, Jasper searched the air for the now familiar despair in the distance. Seeing as how it had morphed into an easier to take pensive and quiet melancholy and not his full force moods of blind and claustrophobic panicking, Jasper decided to go back into the house and spend some time with Alice, who was in that deep calm that often accompanied her fortune telling.

He chose to walk at a slow, rambling human pace, admiring the way the sun rise set the clouds in the sky on fire. As he approached the house, Jasper could here the gentle playing of a piano, and he smiled. He would deal with anyone who can play that well with so much, perhaps _too_ much, emotion and skillful creativity. The music only added to the beautiful scenery and Jasper felt a comfortable peace fall over him, only to have it quickly interrupted.

It was almost like a shock that stopped him in his tracks. Jasper struggled, trying to sort through this new tide feelings that rocketed and hummed through his body. His fingertips shook, his eyes clenched shut, his joints froze in a stiff stance, and he could pick out only a few from the raging ocean and name them; confusion, worry, shock, and a fierce thrill of wonderment.

Once more getting his limbs to function properly, Jasper was sprinting as quickly as he could the Denali house, ignoring Tanya's questioning look as he shot through the door and up the stairs, to the core of emotion that was knotted in a tight ball, now revealing new additions to the tirade, like eager excitement and the dizzy, light-headed sensation of love.

He arrived at the door to his and Alice's bedroom to find Edward spinning a tiny, pixie-like figure in the air at incomprehensible speeds. When he noticed Jasper's presence, Edward stopped, letting down a very enthusiastic Alice and ran to his adopted brother, clasping Jasper's forearms and grinning a maniac smile that seemed like it was ready to burst. Answering the puzzled question in Jasper's mind, Edward ecstatically shouted, "Alice found her!" before running out of the room, leaving only the echo of a burst of musical and utterly happy laughter in his wake.

Jasper turned to his wife with the utterly bemused look of someone who doesn't understand a bit of what had just happened. Reluctantly, not even sure if he wanted to know the answer, Jasper asked, "What happened to him?"

Alice took her husband's hand and started leading him out of the room and down the stairs. "Let's find out, shall we?"

000

Tanya failed to understand the turn of events that had taken place. This made her angry because, as leader of the Denali coven, she not only insisted, but _demanded_ to be in the loop at all times; this, though, was not one of those times.

Chaos was taking over her home at the moment. It had been quiet only a quarter of an hour before, but now, the Cullens were running left and right, talking in excited voices, then disappearing to go to another room. Tanya turned to Irina and saw an identical look of confusion on her face. Soon, Carmen, Eleazar, and Kate joined them on the couch to watch as Edward, dressed in durable clothes and a pair of water proof boots, came down the staircase with Carlisle.

Carlisle took one look around at his family and friends in the living room and sent a smile toward the confused Denalis. The hum of conversation died down when he opened his mouth. "We," he said, "have good news." He motioned for his family to all take seats and finally sat down in a chair himself. Some how, Tanya felt that this wouldn't be particularly good news for her.

She turned her attention toward Carlisle as he began, "Over a year ago, a young man was shot. My family knows of this, but I'm afraid that you, my friends, have not heard of how Edward has become one of our kind. _He_ was the young man, and he fell into my care at a hospital in New York City. It was obvious that he was going to die, the only question was when."

He stopped for a moment, letting the news sink into their minds. Yes, they had wondered how Edward had joined them, but in respect toward his privacy they kept their mouths shut. "What made up my mind to change him, though," Carlisle continued, "was that he knew exactly what I was." There was a wave of shock that ran through the Denalis; no humans should know that vampires even existed.

"Until now, I was the only one that knew _why_ Edward was aware of our kind. My family may have been suspicious or guessed at it, but his human life is as much a mystery to them as it is to you. Edward?" he asked. "Would you mind telling the rest of us what you have just told me upstairs?"

Suddenly, all eyes were on Edward, and they finally saw the expression on his face. It was not the habitual polite mask they had become so accustomed to, but filled to the brim with joyful excitement. He smiled at them all with sparkling eyes as he said, "When I was human," in a voice more velvet and melodic in his happy state than they had ever heard, "I lived by the ocean with my parents. One night there was a storm stronger than most I have ever seen and, out on the pier a few doors down, a girl had fallen in the raging waves.

"I dove in after her and only managed to get caught in the tide far below the water. She…_saved _me, in more ways than one, I now know. Faster than possible, she cut through the heavy waves with ease and dragged me to shore, before disappearing out of my life all together."

His already animated face softened and a warm glow of tenderness encompassed his words. "I fell in love with the girl, and was determined to find her.It didn't matter that she was exactly like the tribal stories describing their 'Cold Ones' or 'Bloodsuckers,' she was now apart of my life. All I really had was her name, Isabella Swan, though. It took me months to track her down to New York.

"I found her at the Public Library, where she worked, and we met. From the look of her eyes, I could tell that she _must_have felt the same way as me, but she left, saying that she was putting me in danger." He let out a grim chuckle and added, "It turned out that the gunman was more jeopardizing than she was, though.

"I have been waiting this whole time to gain enough control so I can go into the world and continue my search for her, but Alice," he threw a quick grin her way, "has just seen where she is, and I'm going to leave and see her." He stood up, and took a small bag, containing a phone, compass, map, and change of clothes, from Esme and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Goodbye. I hope to return in a few days to introduce her to you all."

After a few more hugs and mumbled goodbyes, he was gone, leaving the two families to their varying degrees of reactions. The Cullens, who had at least speculated at the reason for his moods, seemed to be as happy, if not a little worried, as Edward. Carmen, Eleazar, and Kate seemed perplexed at the sudden unloading of information but took it in stride and joined their friends in conversation.

Tanya, though, was staring out the window at Edward's retreating figure with disappointment. Her pride was hurt, and the first real chalenge of a man, one who she had to work for and aspire after, was head over heels for a woman she had never even heard of. Isabella Swan…hmm, Tanya supposed that she ought to at least find out who her competition was. _That way_, she thought with a smug smile, _I know who to gloat to when I win._

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Now, I don't want to jump on the "Tanya is a villain" bandwagon, but I believe that she would, for the sake of her pride, take measures that others wouldn't. She'll cause trouble in the future, but I'm sure it will all be, mostly, unintentional.

**I'd love to hear what you think.**


	5. Chapter 5

**I swear, I can explain! Those of you in a similar situation will understand the demanding, irritable, and cruel place that is high school. It is not only taking away your soul but robbing precious hours of sleep from you, making you fall asleep on any available surface there is, including a keyboard. So if something must be blamed for meanly taking forever to update after a rather built-up bit, blame the institution of education in general, not me, its sad and sleepy victim.**

**Disclaimer: I asked a magic eight ball if owned _Twilight_ and it said, "You wish, loser." Guess it's right there.**

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Chapter Five:  
In Which Edward Gets His Fondest Wish

It was the little things, the sound of a thunderstorm, even the simple color of green, which pulled at Bella's heart day in and day out. With those seemingly normal and plain things, the memories came; some of how his smooth skin felt underneath her fingers, others she didn't even realize she had, like a glance out the window that was a clear shot of him standing in the break of the waves, staring off in the distance with a soft and wondering expression on his treasured face. But they always brought pain, a thing that she no longer asked herself whether it was gone or not, but how much worse it was than the day before.

She'd be lying if she said she wanted the pain to stop, though. In true masochistic fashion, she wanted to keep feeling the tides of remorse and sadness drowning her; it kept her closer to Edward, it its own, strange way. That, at least, was her one and only comfort.

"Excuse me, Miss?" a kind voice said behind Bella. "I don't mean to be rude, but are you Isabella Swan?"

Bella turned away from a wall full of laundry detergent at the local grocery store to a see a short woman behind her, ranging no more than five feet tall and covered in wrinkles. She knew that it was a small town (synonymous with "tiny scrap of land where privacy is unheard of" in her book) but she had moved in only two days ago. "Wow," she said, faking a smile and trying her best to be at least somewhat friendly, "word spreads fast, doesn't it?"

The woman chuckled and patted Bella's shoulder, choosing not to comment on how cold she was. "It sure does, sweetheart. Tell me, how do you like Forks so far?"

"It's nice," was all Bella could come up with before remembering her cover story. "Just as lovely as my mother had said it was." The idea, coming back as her own daughter, had seemed cliché and flimsy, but she was short on time and hadn't thought the move through thoroughly.

Looking like this was the opening she had been waiting for, the woman dived right in. "Oh, I remember your mother as if she lived her just yesterday. You look like twins, you know, not to mention you two having the same name. Did she ever tell you about me? My name is Susan Perry; we'd sometimes have a nice chat when she worked in the bookstore."

With the name came a crystal clear picture of what she looked like twenty-three years ago; her gray hair had been a light blond and she was considerably less…shrunken. By "nice chat" she must have meant "awkward inquisition" that went along the same lines as their current conversation. It seems that for Susan, old habits died hard. But the look of perfect pleasantness on her face made Bella say, "Yes, she did, actually. She said you were the first person to welcome her into the neighborhood."

The little lie caused Susan's smile to widen and she asked, "How is she doing?"

"She passed away a few months ago." This was a brilliant thing to say on Bella's side because that would make even the most talkative of questioners (i.e. Susan Perry) clam up in the uncomfortable silence that inevitably follows such a blunt statement.

True to form, Susan mumbled, "I'm sorry to hear that… _Well_, I must really get going… I still have to start dinner for Freddie. _So_…I suppose I'll…see you around, Isabella." She turned tail and hurried over to the frozen foods aisle before disappearing out of sight. The rest of Bella's shopping excursion was uninterrupted and she could purchase her laundry detergent, along with a few other human items to make it less conspicuous, in whatever passed for peace in her life these days.

She drove home quickly and came to a stop at the base of her driveway, deftly navigating the car around a snowdrift and getting out with ease. With the large paper bags of groceries in her hands, she started a slow walk up to the small house hidden in the next enclosure of trees. She tilted her head back and felt the weak sun finally penetrate the overcast sky and warm her face, painting it with lustrous sparkles and vibrancy.

Here, away from enquiring faces that must be lied extensively to, Bella let the mask slip, and the seemingly happy young girl disappeared. What was left was an achingly beautiful and devastatingly vulnerable angel, treading through the snow in a thoughtful way, her eyes seeming to have too much depth, too much experience. As she turned with a curve in the path, her compact home came into view, and she could smell something in the air, not quite fitting in with the wilderness and the distinct scent of nature around her. She had expected to see a salesman or some other denizen of Forks after she turned along the walkway that revealed her front porch, but it wasn't. She dropped her bags in surprise, letting out a strangled sound that seemed to be a sob.

There was a dead man on Bella's doorstep.

Defying all logic, he smiled apprehensively, adjusting the little pack he had thrown over his shoulder. There was a long moment of silence and he just looked into her large and disbelieving eyes. One word, the only one that was important to him, escaped his lips, and he sighed, "Bella."

"Oh," Bella replied. She seemed unsteady, and if it hadn't been for that fact that she was a vampire, she would have fainted two minutes ago. In a quick movement, she took the skin from the inside of her forearm and pinched it in between two sharp nails, but he didn't disappear. Her eyes marveled at his pale and glistening skin, his topaz eyes. "I've finally gone insane."

The man, which could only be described as an apparition of some sorts, started walking to her in long, powerful strides, yet she remained firmly rooted in her spot. Her mind buzzed, she tried to convince herself that this…beautiful insanity was just a figment of her imagination. A very welcome figment. He - for she couldn't quite call him Edward; when this vision left, the hole in her heart would only grow larger if she knew that she had lost her Edward again - tilted his head to the side, his golden eyes puzzled by her reaction, and once more, in the sweetest voice she had ever heard, asked, "Bella?"

Despite the magnetic pull she felt between their bodies, Bella jerked backwards. "You," she tried to say, the word just managing to be above a whisper, "You are _dead_! You can't be here, right now, with me! You were shot in New York, _fourteen months ago_!" She rubbed her pale palms over her eyes and her body started to tremble. "This can't be," she said, more to herself than anyone else. Bella hadn't realized just how close her mind would link her to Edward when she moved nearer to his memory; yet, underneath, a voice wondered if she should give in, and enjoy the brief link to her lost love while she still could.

"No," he urged, taking her hands in his and pulling them to his non-beating heart, "not dead." He paused before adding, "Okay, I suppose I'm _mostly_ dead, but that is a much better thing than I ever thought it could be." He allowed himself a smile as he thought over her words. She'd mourned him, and maybe, just _maybe_, that could mean that she actually had feelings for him.

But she just continued to look away from him, shaking her head with firm disbelief. "That's what I'd _want _you to say!" she cried, as if that explained everything. "Because it feels so right to have you near me again and you even _feel_ real. I can't let my want control me like this, because the longer this goes on, the more it will hurt when you go."

She struggled, trying to break free of his grip, but he held on tight, drawing her closer to his chest and wrapping his arms around her. "I'm here Bella, really here. Yes, I was shot, but a man saved me. Now I'm like you-"

"Stop it!" yelled Bella, finally meeting his eyes with a sudden fury. "Stop telling me wonderful lies! Stop making my guilt worse! I _loved_ you, Edward, and you just…_died_ before I even knew it mys-" she was cut off by the man's quick movement, pulling her from his chest and, with no hesitation or second guessing, kissed her full on the mouth.

Bella couldn't help it, though every ounce of common sense in her body was against it, and she melted into the kiss. His arms were so reassuringly strong, his movements all heartfelt, and his whole being was entirely…Edward. There was no other way to describe how he made her knees feel weak or sent fireworks off in her mind. Her skeptical mind was shoved back in a faraway corner by her heart, which sung that _this_ was Edward, right here, in her arms.

With some regret, he pulled back and looked into her eyes, the question of whether or not she believed him clear on his face. For the first real time in over a year, Bella smiled. She stroked the side of his smooth face with one hand and ran her other through his silky hair before murmuring "My Edward" and leaning in to kiss him once more.

Emotions, controlling things that they are, took over the two of them. They had been hoping and wishing and praying to hold the other in their arms for so long that simple contact was not enough. As the kiss grew more passionate, they struggled into the house and managed to shut the door. Inside, the lovers were finally all alone with the prospect of eternity together, and on the doorstep, Edward's pack and Bella's groceries lay forgotten, their owners' minds on something exceedingly more lovely and dear to them.

000

It had taken 46 seven years of going over every single traveler that had entered the city in the July of 1961. Every likely candidate was then traced through the world, all their family and close acquaintances listed. Excursions to other countries were taken with unheard of frequency, people were questioned, and records relentlessly gone over. They didn't even know her name, but they were patient.

The Volturi had plenty of time to be patient.

They took their search slowly and surely, Aro edging them along the whole way. Over the years, his enthusiasm for the girl's identity did not ebb as they had hoped, but grew with his curiosity. The girl had been resistant to the twins; God only knows what else she could do! His mind swam with this new layer of protection from mental attacks. Yes, he had Renata for any physical threat, but if he had the girl as well… _anything _was possible.

Aro was not a bad man, or, at least, he didn't see himself as such. His duty to his brothers and the rest of their hidden civilization was always on the forefront of his mind, and in that way he helped form a source of law and order, quietly and competently disposing of any menace to their existence. Aro wanted to believe that the girl would just be another dutiful and esteemed officer for them, but a viciously ambitious voice spoke up in his mind, looking at the broad picture of ruling absolutely. They wouldn't need to worry about rebellions or plans to overthrow them; they'd be invincible, in command with no chance of anyone even daring to contradict the Volturi.

But first they'd have to find her. Demetri, one of the few people who had met with the girl, thus remembering how she looked in his perfect memory, had tentatively reported that he was following a lead in America. He was hesitant because the last man who had thought he'd found her ended up in the lower dungeons of the Volturi castle, a location that, quite literally, ended any hope of another.

Aro sat in the throne room, alone if not for the entourage of five that stood behind him, which was as close to alone as one of the rulers of Volturi could get. He forced his mind back to that day, when Heidi had brought in a particularly large "tour group." She had looked up at him with large and expressive brown eyes, her mind already seeming to register what was going to happen. She had smelled so good that, as the slaughter surrounded them, Aro had difficulty stopping himself as he had injected the venom. He hadn't read anything off her, not even a whisper.

He'd changed her, anxious for the results. They were better then he expected when she had resisted both Jane's and Alec's hardest attacks, only giving them with the same blank look of vague distaste she customarily wore. The girl had rarely spoken to them, most of it consisting of "You killed them," "How can you expect me to take the life of another as nourishment?" and "Why do you want me, can't I leave?" or some other accusatory nonsense. She blamed them for killing whoever had been with her, she never said who, never even told them her name.

Aro had her sit in at all the meetings, hoping that she would see the importance of her position if she would cooperate, but she stoically resisted the call of power and control He couldn't even tempt her with human blood…

Then one night she disappeared, never to be heard of, never to be seen by them again.

There was a meek knock on the door and Gianna, a human that was employed at the reception desk, shuffled in with a wireless phone in one hand. She took one look at Aro's ruby red and oh-so-intimidating eyes swallowed audibly. "Uh, Mister Aro? Mister Demetri is one the phone. He wishes to speak to you immediately." When Aro continued to watch her squirm with a silence that was much more expressive than any words could be, she sputtered, "He says that it is very important."

Aro made an absent-minded gesture with his hand and one of the silent figures behind him stepped forward and took the phone from Gianna, who promptly ran out the door, and handed it to Aro with a bow. Touching the sleek and obviously advanced piece of technology to his ear with a faint yearning for the days of letters written on parchment and sealed with wax, Aro simply said, "Demetri."

"Master," burst a thrilled voice on the other end of the machine. "I have found her identity! The girl is from Phoenix, Arizona and was born September 13, 1944. Her father and mother had taken her on a vacation to our city when-"

"Her name?" demanded Aro, his voice chilled in the new urgency that had taken him over. "What is _her name_?"

"Isabella Swan."

000

"…and I ran the whole way here, hoping like Hell that Alice was right." After Edward's lengthy narrative, the air around them seemed to be mysteriously silent, only the sound of a cold wind rushing through the branches of evergreens penetrating the hush. Edward spared a quick glance out the window to confirm that it was now in the early hours of the morning before letting them return to the person they yearned to see, Bella.

"They sound lovely, Edward," Bella said, absent-mindedly twirling her finger across his bare chest. The name Cullen seemed to want to grab her attention, pulling incessantly at the edge of her brain, but she ignored it, focusing on the naked man in her bed with renewed zeal. The smile on her face stretched wider as she looked into his intense eyes and she felt as though her heart would burst. The happiness that surged through Bella's body buzzed and simmered in an electric way she couldn't begin to explain. Even the way his hair fell untidily across his forward was interesting and vital to her.

"I wish," she sighed, readjusting herself so she was half lying on top of him, wrapping her arms around him, "that we could just stay here." As soon as the words came out of her mouth, another thought came to her mind. "When are they expecting us to return?"

That snapped Edward out of his dreamy daze and he sat up quickly, searching for a clock. Finally, his eyes rested on an old analog on the opposite wall and he sighed. "Probably in a few hours." He looked down at Bella, who was now reclining back on her elbows, and amended. "But, I'm sure they won't mind us staying here a few extra days," Edward leaned down and pecked her on the lips, "or weeks," she locked her hands behind his neck and deepened the kiss, "ok, _years_. We won't even have to leave the house."

Bella held back a giggle and feigned surprise. "But what ever will we do?"

Chuckling, Edward pulled Bella up to a sitting position and brought his lips closely to hers, his breath tickling the side of her face and sending her brain into a whirl of blind emotion and putting a screeching halt on all thought processes. "Oh," he whispered, "I'm positive we can think of _something_."

Resisting the temptation, Bella pulled out of his grasp, ignoring his sour expression, and made her way to her dresser. "We should get going, Edward. I really want to meet them and – Don't look at me like I just killed your puppy!" Bella walked over to the bed and, thanking God that he couldn't read her mind and see how close her resolve was to breaking, kissed him sweetly. "Just think," she purred, "we have _forever_ to do that."

That seemed to console him because he grabbed his clothes off the floor and pulled them on. "I just can't seem to beat your powers of persuasion, Miss Swan. While you get ready, I'll just go on a quick hunt if since we're going to be moving through well populated areas. I'll be back in a few minutes." Edward threw in a sly smile and winked extravagantly at her. "Don't try and miss me too much."

Bella sighed contently as she heard him start whistling a peaceful tune, which grew fainter and fainter the farther away he went. Though she wouldn't tell him, imagine the ego boost it would give, she already _did_ miss him. It was cliché and corny, but not being in his presence hurt her heart, and she hoped that he would be done hunting soon.

Trying to distract herself, Bella finished dressing and started wondering around the small house, picking up what little amount of items she owned and tucking them it. After some trouble, she found her cell phone half-hidden under the sofa and, out of habit more than expectation, checked the screen for any missed calls. Surprisingly, it declared _New Messages_. Bella went through a couple failed attempts, never having mastered these new, sleek machines with many hidden shortcuts and codes, she finally extracted the message from the little phone and played it.

"Miss Swan," said a cool and professional voice, "my name is Henry Grant and I work for your security company. I'm sorry to have not gotten a hold of you to speak about this personally, but I'm afraid the situation is rather, um…_odd_. Your apartment in Manhattan was broken into by unusual means."

The man seemed to hesitate for a second, maybe squinting at a computer printout of the facts, hoping they could shape and reform themselves into something that made sense, and continued. "Your door, which is doubly-reinforced with two slabs of steel, was, well, _ripped off_ its hinges." The man would then go on to explain how nothing appeared to be stolen and that the rest of her apartment was unscathed, but Bella only heard it in the back round when she dropped the phone and thought three horrible words.

_They've found me._

Panic rose within her, she felt a scream coming toward the surface, and she looked over at the door, hoping to see Edward already back, there to comfort her and protect her and –

Edward. This is what she had feared since the beginning, when he was human. They would certainly use any of her loved ones to lure her back to that awful place, full of blood and screams and death. She couldn't let it happen; Bella loved Edward too much, and if they were to find a way to connect him to the Cullens then…

The thought broke off, interrupted by the previous annoyance that had been trying to tell her something about the Cullens, something that was important. It had been in Volterra when she had heard it, being discussed in the circular throne room of the three rulers. They had been…worried about the family, saying that they had grown too strong with their large number and powerful gifts. Marcus had spoken up for them, saying, "But they feed off of animals, they are too soft to be considered a real threat."

And that had been when Bella first realized that there was an alternative to the homicidal life they were trying to force on her. She had only remembered the new hope within her, not the name of those who had inspired it.

Bella's fear doubled, because not only did they find her, knew where her name, but she was also threatening the safe, peaceful lives of a family she had never met, who had saved Edward from a terrible death. If Aro and the others found out that they even had a mind-reader within their coven now, that they were even stronger than before, he would surely find any excuse he could to take them to his side, make them his own. Bella couldn't let the heartless Volturi put them in any harm, she had to take away all association to her, distance herself from them…from Edward…

She had to leave him. _Again_.

Her heart broke at the mere thought, but her mind rushed and told her that he'd be back at any moment. And if she would see his face, hear his voice, she knew that she'd never be able to leave his side. She needed to get out and figure out an answer to this; maybe she could talk it out with them, strike up a deal.

Bella bent down and picked up the phone, snapping it shut and stuffing it in her bag. While keeping an ear out the whole time, Bella grabbed a piece of paper and started to scribble madly upon it, trying to get everything she was thinking and feeling written down. When it was done, she set it on the nightstand and placed the charm bracelet, the one Edward had had the whole time, only to give back to her, on top. _It's better that he has it_, Bella thought_, as something to remember me by._ It chilled her, because tagging along, finishing the sentence was, _in case something should happen to me._

The snow-covered forest was still as she left the house, hesitating six times, already sobbing tearlessly. Her heart was crying out to Edward, telling him to come back early and stop her, but her brain silenced it. _You're fooling yourself, _her heart yelled_, if you think that leaving will stop them from finding those dear to you!_ The brain ignored the protest and pressured Bella's limbs into stiff movement, slowly building up to a sprint.

Before the trees covered the house, before everything she cared for disappeared out of sight, Bella looked back at the empty house that, under its unassumingly simple exterior, didn't even hint at the horrors of heartbreak that lie within.

She continued on, though, chanting the reasons for leaving that were growing more insubstantial to her mind the further she went away, her heart not believing a word of it.

_I'm doing this for Edward_, she told herself. _For Edward._

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I know, I am a _very_ terrible person. I hope I can update soon, and thanks for reading.


	6. Chapter 6

**Thank you, thank you, and _thank you_ for all those wonderful reviews.**

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer and I flipped a coin for the rights of _Twilight_ back in the day and, to my despair, I lost.**

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Chapter Six:  
In Which Edward Loses His Fondest Wish

Rosalie turned a page of the magazine held delicately in between her hands, feigning interest at the upcoming spring fashions, and strained her ears. Three rooms over, Tanya was having a private phone conversation. This, in itself, was suspicious for the simple fact that no one in this house _ever_ took a private call. It was impossible with a clairvoyant and a mind-reader, not to mention over a dozen pairs of extra-sensitive ears, so they didn't even bother.

Until now that is.

It seemed that Tanya had a plan of mysterious nature, and this little touch of drama beckoned Rosalie closer, enticing her vampiric curiosity. No one else had seemed to notice as Tanya slipped away with her cell phone, whispering and muttering as only a vampire could do.

From where she sat, Rosalie could only hear bits and pieces – "…I want to know about someone…surely your people know all of us…Olympic Peninsula. Why? What has she done…" – but to her they just didn't add up. No names were used, that Rosalie had heard, and it was all ambiguously vague.

Soon she heard the snap of a cell phone closing shut and Rosalie focused back on the magazine, reading along the lines but not comprehending what they said. She was too preoccupied with what she saw out of the corner of her eye; Tanya.

She was treading slowly around the corner into the living room, her brow wrinkled in deep thought, her eyes downcast and clearly puzzled, her lips pressed tightly together in a tight frown. Tanya took one look at Rosalie and a guilty expression appeared before disappearing just as fast when she composed her features. You could still see it though, in the corners of her eyes and the way her hand clenched too tightly on the cell phone in her hand.

Then Tanya was out the back door and sprinting toward the forest, a recklessness that Rosalie had never seen in her apparent in the swift turns and oblivious speed.

Rosalie set the magazine down and tucked a golden curl behind her ear. Tanya had been acting strange for the past two days, not talking much and wrapped in her own blanket of quiet determination. Now, she seemed so startlingly uncertain and fragile.

She had a secret, and Rosalie was going to get to the bottom of it.

000

Wind carried the snow in from the gentle drift outside. It blanketed the wooden floor of the cabin, untouched save for the swinging door, which banged back and forth with each gust from the blustery weather. But the only inhabitant didn't mind. He just sat on the small bed, impervious to a cold that was physical, knowing that it was no match for the barren wasteland that his heart had become.

In his clenched hand was a piece of paper, folded and wrinkled and smeared from the near hundred times it had been looked over with varying degrees of loss, anger and sadness. It read:

_I've never really had a reason to live for; goals, yes, but never something that you set your heart on and pray for every night. But then you came along, Edward, out of nowhere, turning my simple existence inside out and making all my thinking muddled. It had been simple before, I only had to think of myself, but with you, I suddenly _cared_. Edward, you made my knees weak and somehow gave me hope, not the acceptance I had been living with, for the future._

_I suppose I made you mine, in a way. Everything that concerned you was of central importance to me. I wanted to know everything about you and make you as happy as you could make me with just the memory of one smile._

_That is why I have to leave. I know it's a stupid reason that is overused in books and movies across the world, but if I were to stay, you wouldn't be what I most desperately hoped for you to be: safe. All you have to know is that there are some people after me. When I was changed, they wanted my power and tried to make me stay with them, but I escaped. I want to settle this with them, tie up all the loose ends and return to you as soon as possible. Please believe that, Edward. My love is the one thing you can be absolutely certain of, don't_ ever_ doubt that._

_And don't come after me. You have been chasing me ever since we met and quitting might seem hard to you, but you have to. Please, for me. When this is over, we'll be together, out of all harm. I promise._

_I love you Edward, and I'm so sorry, _

_Bella_

Despite her wishes, he had tried tracking her down. The sight of the empty house terrified him and he had immediately ran back to the woods, his nose in the air, looking for any sign of her passage. But the snow had then blanketed everything, leaving Edward with nothing to go on. He had stumbled back to the house, feeling his world crash around him.

From the beginning of his transformation, he had had the hope of Bella. It was what had driven him to pushing his control and testing himself over and over. Now that she had left him when she knew of his love put his whole life into question. Edward felt the feelings the thought of her had put a stop to crash over his body. Suddenly, he was homesick, mentally exhausted, and unsure of what to do next.

_She doesn't want me_, he thought miserably. The note in his hands mocked him, teased at the ends of his thoughts, and danced across his mind in loping, sarcastic sways. Yet, no matter how much his wounded spirit yelled for him to rip it up, throw it away, or just simply let it fall onto the snow-covered floor, he couldn't. His heart told him those thoughts were unfair and self-centered. _Bella _does_ want you, Edward_. _That's why she left._

But that was a path Edward didn't want to go down. He needed time to think and plan. He needed to evaluate his position and look for a way out, an emergency exit he just couldn't see in the swirling mass of bright, florescent hurt that hid it from sight.

Reaching for his phone and pressing one of the speed dials, Edward thought that Bella was right. He _would_ continue chasing after her.

000

"I want a list of all her properties within the Olympic Peninsula, Demetri. My entourage and I will arrive in Seattle on our private jet within a few hours and you are expected to be waiting for us there." Aro flipped the phone shut, handing it mechanically to the waiting hands of an attendant to his right. He rubbed his hands together in a decidedly predator-like gesture that seemed to signal that the hunt is almost over, the prey is within reach.

And it was all thanks to a stupid, jealous woman. If she hadn't called, asking about a girl, then the Volturi could have wasted _years_ chasing Isabella from house to house, just missing her. But now, the choice had narrowed drastically to two houses; a small property in a town none of them had ever heard of, or a sea-side mansion. They were going toward the latter, the more likely location, first. That Denali girl had said that was where Isabella and the foolish boy had met.

"Master?" called the soft voice of Jane. "The plane is ready to take off."

Aro smiled at the small but lethal girl and answered, "Let us leave, then, my dear." The girl's lips twisted into a smirk and she took off before him, joining her brother on the way. The two angelic children had specifically asked to join him on this journey. Though their powers didn't harm the one they were chasing, they were an intimidating force. They hated Isabella for so easily denying her powers and wanted revenge.

And, if they still could not get their hands on her, then they could at least hurt the boy she loved, Edward.

Tanya had told him of the boy. His good, old friend Carlisle apparently had a hand in his transformation. Edward could read minds without the necessary contact that Aro himself needed, and this worried Aro. He knew that the Cullen's were becoming quite a powerful coven, gaining more members and alliances as the years passed, their talents unrivaled and unique. They were well respected, as well, a trait that could be dangerous for Aro, who had gained many enemies during his stay in power.

But, then again, Aro was thinking of this wrong. He didn't need to think of this as a cruel act of tearing apart any threat he foresaw and ruining otherwise happy and fulfilling lives, but as an opportunity for…_recruiting_.

000

Trying to not look at the clock, Carlisle paced his study. Back and forth across the floor he went; his footsteps unintentionally in time with the internal ticking of the offending timepiece perched on the mantle. He shouldn't be worrying, yet worry he did. Living as long as he has, Carlisle's developed and finely tuned senses to the world around him and he could ­_feel_ when a shift between circumstances took place. Now, he had an apprehension he couldn't shake and his mind wandered over to Edward, his son.

It would have been fate, or some odd kind of coincidence that his phone were to ring then, but Carlisle had been puzzling Edward's situation for hours, making the name that flashed across the screen of his cell long awaited and too late.

He flicked it open and questioned, "Edward?" with open concern.

From the other side he could hear the familiar high winds that accompanied running and his son's voice barely bothering to rise over it. "She's left, Carlisle." His voice sounded so dead; as controlled and forcibly restrained as the times he failed in training and saw his plans set back another month.

"Bella?" Was all Carlisle's mind could come up with. He realized how stupid and insensitive that sounded and tried to comfort the poor boy. "Edward, I'm sure it must have been some misunderstanding. Or, if it is what you think best, you can come home-"

"No, I'm not going home, or, at least, what is _now _considered my home." Carlisle had never heard the articulate and thought-out Edward seem so flustered and indecisive. "I'm going back to where this all started. I need to think this out and work out a new plan. Maybe I will say a final goodbye to my parents… Then I'm leaving, for good. I refuse to give up on her, Carlisle." He sounded like he wanted to say more, but it passed, and in short, clipped words, Edward ended the conversation with, "I will visit you if I'm ever in the area again and will call to check up sooner or later. It's best that I disappear for a while… Goodbye, and give my love to the others."

The line went dead and Carlisle stared at the blank screen with shock. Then, his mind began working once more, catching the phrase he should be most terrified off in that farewell: _"Maybe I will say a final goodbye to my parents..." _

Carlisle ran out of his study and into the hallway, unnecessarily yelling his daughter's name. "Alice?" he called as he passed her room. "_Alice_! This is impor-"

"We're here, Carlisle," calmly said a dainty voice from the main hall. He was there in a second and saw Alice and Jasper standing side by side, both wearing clothes that were tough and durable. "Here." She tossed him a pile of clothes and urged, "Dress quickly and we still have a chance of catching up."

Hesitating only for a second, Carlisle asked, "Will they be safe?"

"I don't know." She ran a hand through her disarray of hair and Jasper wrapped an arm around her waist, sending out a wave of tranquility to anchor her to the present. "It keeps changing, but sometimes he avoids them entirely and sometimes they die horribly." Her golden gaze connected earnestly with his and in a mere whisper she sighed, "But we've got more things to worry about than his parents."

000

In the burning glory of the sunset, the ocean waves were painted the most fantastic hues of red and orange. To Bella, it all looked like blood.

She was in the small space in her basement, curled in a ball with six inches of steel surrounding her on every side. The doorway was concealed, and only through pressing a specially concealed spot would a panel slide out, asking for a sixteen digit password. She felt like a child playing a demented game of hide and seek, only the prize for winning is your life. She knew it wouldn't stop them, but, perhaps, while they were momentarily distracted by the defenses, she could escape through the back entrance and make it could safely.

I loud crash echoed down from upstairs and Bella knew that they had gotten through her first line of security, which was, basically, her only security besides the compartment she was cowering in.

They didn't bother to be quiet as an authoritive voice ordered them to fan out and search for her. Bella wasn't breathing anymore as the footsteps slowly paced across the wooden floors of her house, invading it in their search for her.

Bella cursed herself for coming back here. She had only wanted a place to plan so she could then fly to Italy and speak with them on _her_ terms. But now, she was to be a prisoner of theirs; unable to barter and bargain for the freedom she so desperately wished for.

The basement stairs creaked.

Waiting until the person owning them seemed to be inspecting the wall holding the hiding place, Bella pressed a button to her left and a passage revealed in front of her. Quietly, yet swiftly, she pulled herself along the seven feet of passage then came to the ladder rungs she had installed going straight up to a spot on her driveway, where she could then run like Hell in whatever direction didn't have any opposition. She'd _swim_ if she had to.

At the top of the ladder, Bella unlatched the trapdoor and the reddish sunlight covered her pale features. A noise below showed that the assailant downstairs had managed to rip through the reinforced steel, Bella hurriedly pulled herself through the hole and turned to run. She had made only the depressing distance of two feet when a voice called to her.

"Hello, Isabella, my dear," it purred with satisfaction pouring out through every syllable. "How nice it is to see you again."

000

Darkness had fully fallen upon the sea-side community when a lithe figure climbed through the open windows of the Masen's home. It walked silently to a chair in the corner of the master bedroom, and sat down with a ponderous air of one deep in thought. The head tilted to its side when it concentrated on the slow, sleeping minds of the two forms in the bed.

They were huddled together underneath the massive sheets, clinging to each other even in sleep, depending upon the other to protect them from the malicious nightmares that hid in the night. There were abandoned tissue boxes feebly peeking out from the mass of their used and fallen insides. A TV had been brought into the room on a cart. Towers of plates and bowls leaned precariously to their tipping point, mostly filled with untouched food. It looked as though the two hadn't left the room for a year.

The person in the chair's attention was brought to the slender figure as her breathing became more panicked. She writhed underneath the heavy comforter and bolted upright, tears streaming down her face, her auburn hair resembling a haystack. The man in the chair froze, and willed himself to sink back into the cushions. He didn't dare move for fear that she would see even the slightest sliver of who he was.

Looking down at her husband to make sure she did not wake him with her start, Elizabeth wiped the troublesome tears from her eyes. In her dream, she was back on the phone, listening to an officer tell her that her son was dead. She knew that all the shows and books said that mourning parents ought to busy themselves with activities and clubs, but, to Elizabeth, that felt disrespectful. Both her and Eddie had loved their son so much, that merely forgetting about him and hiding their misery was impossible.

At least she had Eddie, though. They were all they had left now, and they didn't teeter into the fighting and blaming that Elizabeth had heard accompanied their situation. She gently ran a hand over his soft, black hair and felt love blossom within her; he hadn't even suggested that they try and forget about Edward, and had no complaint to the long path of mourning they were walking, hand-in-hand, down. Elizabeth was blessed to be married to him.

She cast her eyes across the dark room, taking in the mess that she could see highlighted with the bright light of the full moon flooding through the windows. Elizabeth knew that before she wouldn't have let anything like this happen within her household, but every time she tried, a little object, something trivial, would remind her of Edward and she couldn't carry on any longer, incapable of any motion except cradling the found object in her arms and remembering.

She might as well take down the dishes, though. The swaying stacks had been worrying Elizabeth, making her think that any moment they would fall on top of something important. And, with the piles of old baby albums and carefully drawn sheets of music, that could be anywhere.

Awkwardly getting out of bed, Elizabeth felt unprotected away from the calming warmth of the sheets and the needed presence of Eddie. The cold floorboards underneath her feet felt foreign and vague; she was suddenly aware that she was now a stranger in her own house. Sighing, she held the first mass of dirty dishes in her arms and turned to the d-

There was a man in the corner.

Elizabeth screamed and dropped all that was in her arms taking several hasty steps back. Behind her, she heard Eddie wake up with a start, urgently groping for his glasses as he frantically asked how she was. Elizabeth spotted the cordless phone on the dresser and was about to make a move for it when she heard the man speak.

"Wait, don't, please." It was a soft, vulnerable voice, pulling at her heartstrings with dreadful familiarity. "I will leave; I promise. I just…wanted to see you again. I shouldn't have. Sorry." The man started toward the window, his steps slow, his hand lightly touching a picture frame on the wall, and he avoided the moonlight, hiding his face from them.

Behind Elizabeth, Eddie's mind reeled. That voice, had he imagined it? Was it that he hadn't yet shaken off the last vestige of his terrifying dream, where he had to watch his son shot in the heart over and over, or could it possibly be…? "Edward?" he found himself calling. "Is it really you?" Eddie heard his wife swallow audibly, already knowing that she had thought the same thing he had.

The man stopped in his tracks. In the shadowed alley where he walked, he turned, the outline of his head seeming to consider the light of the window in front of him for a moment, and then he stepped forward.

The Masens gasped. There, standing before them, was their dead son, illuminated from the light behind him like an angel. His features seemed to have changed, became too perfect for the likes of any mortal human, but it was Edward. He regarded his parents with a fretful expression, listening to their minds with diligence and ready to bolt if they didn't want to see him. "Hello," he whispered in that soft, velvet voice.

"Oh _Edward_." Feeling pulled to this beautiful dream, Elizabeth was oblivious to everything around her, from her husband's slow, fumbling task of dismantling himself from the bed and onto his feet to the sharp pieces of broken dinner settings that littered the floor. "How?" Her mind went back to when she had not been able to see the corpse in New York. The doctor had said she wouldn't want to see her son like that…they had agreed… "You're…alive?"

Edward, who had been both painfully aware of the too-hopeful expressions dawning on his parents' faces and how his mother's foot was getting, in her little shuffling steps, dangerously more likely to stepping on one of the glinting remains of a bowl. Quickly taking a step forward, Edward took his mother by the elbow with one hand and his father's shoulder with the other, leading them to the bed and gesturing for them to sit down on the end.

There they watched, in awe and entranced, as he began to pace back and forth, feeling the shiver that still stayed even though his icy touch had left. His thick, durable boots crushed any offending glass and, occasionally, he would glance at them, open his mouth as if to speak, and close it with a snap before continuing his pacing with renewed fervor.

Eddie, confused by this odd and implausible world he had woken up to, took his wife's hand in his own. She squeezed it with what reassurance she could and they continued to watch their ghost of a son run a troubled hand through his hair.

As the word "ghost" ran through the Masen's minds in almost synchronicity, Edward grabbed at it and held it down with every mental ounce of strength he had. He turned toward their grief-ridden, disbelieving, and, somehow the worst, unwaveringly loving faces with the same emotions that danced across his own perfect features. "No, Mom," he said. "I am not alive."

In this, the house that he was raised in, Edward's voice was growing more and more out of place with its alien beauty. He was brought here as a child. He ate, slept, bled, cried, and _lived_ within its comforting walls. This house and, he realized with pain, his _parents_, belonged to his human self, not the new, dazzling and deadly creature he had become. "I am dead."

Elizabeth's and Eddie's faces dropped, but only slightly; they were aware that they were on stolen time with their boy, and they would take it, no matter how over the edge it all seemed. Eddie pushed his glasses up and squinted, looking for a glimmer, perhaps a shimmer, in his son's form. An old question, one that had been haunting him doggedly for the long, hard year, found its way to his mouth. "Why did you leave, Edward?"

Their boy looked at them with dark, hunted eyes. They saw, even in the uncertain moonlight, that they were not the lovely green ones he had inherited from his mother, but something entirely different; foreign. Edward sank down to the floor, folding his legs like a pensive Indian chieftain, and looked up at them with the same devotion and admiration he had had as he stared up at them those many times during his childhood while listening to countless stories of adventure and romance. Now, though, it was his turn to tell the tale.

"I fell in love," he said simply. In the faint light they could see a glint of silver as Edward pulled a delicate bracelet from his pocket and held it lightly in his hand, like a sacred thing. "Completely and utterly in love." His eyes flickered up to meet theirs, asking for forgiveness, praying for someone to lighten the emotional load he held on his back, but they could only stare back at his heartbreaking face and see the rather desperate way he held the jewelry. "Dad, I remember when you once told me that you fell in love with Mom the moment you saw her. And when she stepped into my life, I was instantly smitten; I had to follow her, had to have her."

Elizabeth, a tear running down her cheek, reached out and, in the most motherly of gestures, ran the tips of her fingers over Edward's face. Once again the cold surprised her, but not as much as his reaction. He placed his icy hand over hers and his eyes darted between the sweet, kind expressions of his parents. "I'm…so _sorry_," he breathed, his eyes so full of sadness and emotion that it was a wonder tears hadn't started their slow wavering descent down his face.

"Don't be sorry," Eddie said, getting off the edge of the bed and kneeling before his son. "_Never_ be sorry. We love you, Edward. No matter what." He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Edward and soon felt Elizabeth join in on the embrace, her body shaking with her sobs.

It felt so good to them, holding Edward just like they had done countless times before, in both the good and the bad, that they didn't notice how his body froze, fighting off a monster that he refused to let out. The moment of blood lust stood face to face with Edward's frantic need for this last moment with his parents. There was a brief struggle, but his heart won out and he returned the hug.

Just for that brief, shimmering moment, they were family again, and that was enough for them.

They stayed like that for several minutes of silence, but Edward heard an unmistakable call of his new life ringing in the chambers of his mind. He sighed, interrupting the happy memories of more simple times that were running through his parent's minds. He pulled back, staring into the faces of his two idolized heroes and said his last farewell.

"I have to leave now," he said. They, who have both been well taught in the world of fiction, took this as meaning that he no longer had to linger. Edward didn't bother to correct them. It was much easier to let them think he was a tortured spirit, a concept accepted to them, then entangle their lives any more with the supernatural.

Words, cliché and reminiscent of so many movies, though completely heartfelt, fell from his mouth as he noiselessly backtracked to the window. "I love you both so much. You were the most perfect parents a kid could ask for and I wouldn't want to change one second of it. Goodbye." Then he was gone out the window, moving toward the future with a settled hear and new motivation.

Elizabeth and Eddie wordlessly clung to one another, needing no words to express the feeling coursing through their bodies. They didn't have to try and convince themselves that this was some odd, shared dream. In their need to come to peace with what had happened to their son, they believed it more readily than any of the other events that had happened in the past year.

It would still be some hours until they went back to bed, but it would be a dreamless, restful sleep. They were finally out of the dark tunnel and into the bright calm of acceptance.

000

The Cullens found Edward on the pier, resting his arms on the repaired railing and staring at the horizon, where the star-speckled sky met with the calm sea. As they approached, he looked over his shoulder and answered the unasked questions running wildly through their heads. "No, I did not kill my parents. They are in the house, unharmed. We just need to work out the past so we could…move on." He spoke the last bit with reverence, making it seem like a path to something heavenly.

Carlisle's mind settled from the whirlwind of doubts it had been and fell into understanding relief. "Good. Let's start home before the sun r-"

"No," Edward interrupted. "I meant what I said on the phone." He took a deep breath, trying to block the guilt that came rushing in when he heard the sad, unintentionally pleading thoughts in his adopted family's minds and-

Froze.

Weaving almost unnoticeably underneath the heady scents of human blood from the sleeping individuals in the houses, the distinctive ones of the Cullens', and the full smell of the sea beneath him, there was something dearly familiar to him. It reminded him of long, treasured hours alone in a cabin, brief moments of complete happiness, and freesia.

His face was a mask of shock, his head telling him that it couldn't be, that it was just wishful thinking. "Bella?"

Jasper gave Alice a questioning glance and grew only more apprehensive at the unsurprised knowing that wound through her emotions and showed itself in her large, pitying eyes.

Carlisle followed Edward's gaze up the length of the beach to a beautiful mansion. He cautiously sniffed the air and let the variety of smells sink in. He had identified every one of them but two; a sweet, floral scent and one that was darker, older, seeming to be the combination of several different sources all collected together to form something that felt like a predator to Carlisle. He didn't know where to place the somewhat familiar scent until it hit him. With growing foreboding, he hissed, "The Volturi."

Edward snapped out of his daze and tried to catch up with the flurry of ominous thoughts that took over his adoptive father. "What do you mean?" He couldn't pick anything from Carlisle's mind but the image of dark castle walls in the shape of a circular room where robed figures looked down at you with suspicion. "Who are they?"

Trying to rid himself of their threatening presence in his thoughts, Carlisle looked over to Alice, standing beside her husband. Her face said that misfortune was coming, her eyes said that it would not be merciful. Carlisle wrung his hands and finally faced Edward. "This is much worse than I had thought."

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**I'd love to hear what you think (_wink wink_, _nudge nudge_).  
**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: Yeah, I know, I know. I can only own _Twilight_ in my most warped and twisted dreams.  
**

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Chapter Seven:  
Where Things Only Get Worse

"Tell me," a voice as old as the castle walls surrounding them spoke to Bella's left, "about the Edward boy." It was an order as only could be delivered by a practiced ruler; seeming like a friendly invitation to conversation but underlined with a cold edge that said if she didn't do as he said, things would take yet another turn for the worse.

She had, in her slow and wondering walk about the endless halls of the Volturi castle, been trying to ignore the ruler's, and those of his guard who followed closely behind, undeniable presence. But, it seemed, that Aro didn't tolerate any prisoner who failed to be as amusing as he had hoped.

Bella racked her brain for a way to explain without Aro becoming interested in the person whose heartbroken face haunted her mind with steadfast tenacity. "He was just a boy I knew," she decided to say in her hollow, lifeless voice. The words felt wrong on her mouth; putting the man she loved into such an insignificant and untrue phrase made her hate herself even more that she already did.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Aro shake his head with a smile. "Nice try, Isabella," she cringed as her name rolled off his lips, hearing the greedy undercurrent that accompanied it. "I was told, however, that you two were an item; that you were in love."

Forcing herself to not react, to not question his source, to make her voice as steady as the stones she was treading upon, Bella replied, "He was a brief mistake. The boy became infatuated with me and when his novelty had worn off, I left him." She stifled the aching sensation of outrage her heart had become as she spoke, fought to keep her expression blank. Then, she uttered the most painful lie she could imagine. "I never loved him."

"Do you think," asked Aro, watching her face for any to her thoughts, "that he will follow you?" He was never one to underestimate the underdog and would leave no scenario unprotected against.

"No," Bella said heavily, more of a prayer than a statement, "he will not follow me."

000

"8:25 flight to Florence, Italy boards in five minutes at Gate 21," a voice overhead said through the speakers in the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Most of the people, who were either bolting through the terminals at break neck speeds or incurably bored with sitting in uncomfortable seats for long periods of time, didn't take notice to this announcement, but, in a corner away from the crowds of people, four people looked up in unison.

One of them, a startlingly handsome boy with unruly hair, stood up, holding nothing but a passport his sister had had the foresight to bring with her and a small bracelet in his clenched hands. He looked at the other three and shook his head at something one of them was thinking. "No," he said, "I should go alone. If these Volturi are as ruthless as you say they can be, Carlisle, then I don't want any of you dragged into this as well. It is my fight, not yours."

The younger of the two blond men nodded his head and stood to shake Edward's hand. They smiled warmly at each other; a soldier's approval of another man's duty passing between them.

Then the short girl rose gracefully to her feet and, disregarding the boy's outstretched hand, threw her arms around his neck and squeezed tight. The boy looked confused, but he gave up trying to look past the repeating goodbyes that shielded his access from any other thoughts in her mind. She let go and took her place beside her husband, waiting for older blond man to make a move.

But he didn't get up from his seat; the man just sat there, running his hands over his face, so young but somehow so knowledgeable and wise, with worry. "To think," he sighed, his voice like those who knew that they were trying to push a mountain but persisted nonetheless, "of you within their control, Edward, shatters all of the hope I would otherwise have.

"You do not realize how _powerful_ they are, and what lengths they will take to keep it that way." He paused, turning words around in his head and thinking back to the tightly guarded castle that was their fortress. "They will see you as a threat to that power they treasure so."

"I will follow wherever she goes," Edward said, saying each word with conviction, turning it into the oath it already was in his heart. "Carlisle, you have told me all you know about them, the great amount of information you have gained through years of companionship, and I can outthink them if that is what it comes to. Do not worry."

Carlisle's face twisted in anguished frustration as his imagination shot his mind into a possible future where his son would be cold-heartedly killed for no reason. "I _will_ worry, Edward!" he shouted, drawing the attention of several people passing by. "You can _die_, and you don't even seem to care!" He stood up and placed a hand on either of the boy's shoulders. "_Why _do you continue walking to almost certain death?"

Edward met his adopted father's eyes with desperate sincerity. "If she dies then I do as well. There _is_ no other option," he said quietly, begging the man to see his side. "Imagine they had Esme. What would you do to get her back? Anything?" Carlisle's silence caused Edward to nod. "Bella means as much to me as your wife does to you." He leaned forward and wrapped his long arms around the father-figure for a moment, then pulled back. "I will see the family when this is all done. Goodbye."

Edward started to walk off in the direction of Gate 21 but turned on his heel, several feet away from his forlorn family and called back, "How will I know to find them?"

In the snatches of them he could see between the changing and pulsing groups of people moving around them, their expressions changed to cold, mirthless humor. "That," he heard the high, clear voice of Alice answer him, "is the last thing you need to worry about." Then the crowd became too thick as other people on his flight ran to get to the plane.

Turning and walking faster, Edward pushed through the oncoming throng and found Gate 21, already boarding for the flight. He handed over his ticket and stepped aboard the plane, feeling nerves bunch in the pit of his stomach as he thought ahead to where he was going. His gut said that this wasn't going to happen like he wanted it to and his brain couldn't help but agree.

000

Esme, Rosalie, Emmett, and the Denalis sat in a loose circle, staring at the phone dock in front of them. The familiar and well-loved voice of Carlisle was emitting from the speaker function as he told them of the events that had conspired since he had left the house with Alice and Jasper. They were all joined in their worry for Edward, clinging to each word Carlisle said, but as he told them of the Volturi's involvement and how Edward had left for Italy, someone broke away from the group.

Rosalie watched as Tanya stood up from her seat, her body rigid with some indefinable emotion, her beautiful face marred with an expression of acute pain. She stared unbelievingly at the phone, then turned on her heel and ran out the door.

It had happened so quickly that no one but Rosalie, who had been keeping an eye on Tanya, had seen it. Detaching herself from her family, she too left the room, walking as smoothly and powerfully to her prey as any hunter. She saw Tanya pacing along the out edge of the back porch and joined her in the cold snow.

At seeing Rose enter, Tanya stopped, almost recoiling from the intimidating blond. She wanted desperately to configure her facial muscles in a way that didn't scream guilt and fear, but it was stuck. Rosalie took a step forward, and the inner frailty in Tanya made her take a step back, showing just deeply effected she was by what she had unthinkingly done.

Rosalie appraised the other woman. They were friends, true, but Rosalie, for all her vanity and selfishness, was unwaveringly loyal to those who were family to her. She knew that Tanya had a hand in the events that were working against her new brother, who had understood her cynical humor, played any song she requested on the piano, and came to her for help with his tolerance, and she didn't like it. Not one bit. "What," she asked, all warmth gone from her voice, making it as icy as their surroundings, "have you done?"

Tanya felt frayed at her seams, falling apart and unable to do anything to stop the process; the more she tried to pick off the loose ends, the more undone she became. Her eyes searched the fiery gold of Rosalie's and she felt her voice, sounding too weak, too pleading, to be her own, say, "It was just a phone call; just a question. It wasn't supposed to happen like this…"

"How, then?" snapped Rosalie, grasping the importance of the phone call Tanya had made the other day. "How, then, was it supposed to happen?" She advanced toward the woman, as spiteful and vengeful as a fury. "Did you think that if you had them take her away, _kill her_; that he would just walk away? _Forget_ about the love of his life to be with _you_?"

Now, practically nose to nose, Rosalie's anger simmered, replaced by pity for her old friend, for the boy running to his death, and the girl who probably had faced hers. "Their blood will be on your hands, Tanya." She walked away from the solemn girl on in the snow, trying not to look back.

And Tanya Denali stood rooted to that spot for the next hour, spiraling through the atmosphere of wild and guilty panic and crashing through to the hope of repentance, maybe a way to fix things. She had made a horrible mess of things, but that didn't mean she couldn't fix it.

000

It was five in the afternoon when Felix finished the circuit of all roadside stations. He had been ordered to alert all of the station operators that a potentially dangerous man was thought to be entering the city, give them the description they had got from that Denali girl, and then tell them to call his phone if he was seen. Until then, he would wait in the completely shadowed courtyard, watching each passing figure with open suspicion.

He hadn't been there for more than half an hour when his cell gave the nondescript, vague beep that signaled a call. Felix opened it quickly and put it to his ear. "Yes?"

"Oh, is this, uh, Mister Felix?" a rather worried voice asked. Felix could immediately place this to the short, dark haired man who ran one of the lesser used stations. "That man you were talking about, the, uh, _dangerous_ one. I think he walked through the gate. Didn't stop when I tried calling after him…"

Felix hung up on the frightened man. _So_, he thought as his feet automatically started taking him to that part of the city, _the boy has come for her after all_. He pushed past a group of excitable tourists, not without picking out the one that smelled of exotic and mouthwatering spices, and skirted around the edge of one of the city's more ornate and flamboyant fountains. Felix almost went on his thought-out path, to the street on his right, down the second alley way on his left, and a run to the station, but something caught his attention.

It was a deceivingly appealing scent, and Felix recognized it as the sign of another predator. He slowly turned around, surveying the square with sharp eyes, looking in the shadows for movement, in the windows of houses for a face that looked back. He only turned half the way though, because the one he was searching for was out in the open, sitting at the edge of the fountain and watching the clusters of pigeons that swarmed around him. The young man, or maybe only a boy by the looks of him, didn't look up to him, but Felix had the odd sensation that the he knew what Felix was and why he was watching him.

When giving the assignment, Aro had not told Felix of Edward's talent. The ruler, for some deep, apprehensive reason, didn't want to admit that such a strong power could be given to a mere lovesick boy. It was childish, Aro had told himself, but strangely necessary, like a taboo; if he didn't say it, it wouldn't be true.

But it was true, and Edward could hear every thought running through the man's mind as he ventured a step closer. _He's just a kid,_ Felix told himself._ No reason at all to be thrown off…_

Without looking up from the cobblestones, Edward said in a calm, offhand voice, "Hello Felix. I was told that the Volturi would find me quickly, but I find myself quite flattered that you would go through this amount of trouble for me." He finally lifted his face and stared at Felix, his face not as at ease as his voice suggested, but instead twisted in barely repressed anger. Felix found himself frightened of the boy and his shaking hands, which looked like they would sooner wring his neck than shake his hand. "You may all be cold, heartless killers," continued Edward, his golden eyes glinting, "but at least you're punctual."

Edward watched as Felix froze mid-step. If there was one thing that Felix hated it was when people had the gall to insult the Volturi, his home, his _life_. Without the kindness of his masters he would be a wild vagabond with no real purpose. He sank into his default expression, one of careful yet professional indifference, intimidating but willing you to do as he said. "Master Aro has requested your presence immediately."

Nodding once, Edward stood from his sitting position on the fountain's edge and jumped off, startling the crowd of pigeons into a flurry as they launched themselves into the air as quickly as they could. He lithely strode in front of the still wary Felix and started walking toward the Volturi castle, reading the map Felix had unintentionally given him with a mere thought.

After a second of utter bewilderment, the guard of the Volturi followed behind the boy, feeling unsure about his previously firm and admiring beliefs that his masters were doing what was for the best.

000

In the circular chamber that was the throne room, Aro could hear the two men as they approached. One was the plodding, yet always ready to jump into action at a moments notice, gait of Felix, the other was a quiet and confidant, taking long strides through the leering castle as surely as any of its lifelong inhabitants. Aro assumed that this was Edward.

If he hadn't been one of the rulers over the vampire world for centuries on end, Aro would have been surprised that the boy had even shown up. But since he was, the thought didn't even cross his mind. His face resembled stone as he gestured for one of the hand-picked guards he had assembled for this occasion to open the door for Felix and the boy as the entered the room.

Though he had a description of Edward from Tanya Denali, his appearance still shocked Aro. He seemed too young, too _inexperienced_ with their dangerously exclusive world, to have such natural control with himself. Edward did not shake and beg as most did when entering the inner chambers of the Volturi. Instead he held his head high, looking each threat in the eye and giving off the sense that he had an advantage that all the others lacked. Only his darling little Isabella had looked upon the rulers with that amount of contempt and disdain. It would be both their downfalls.

"Where is she?" asked Edward, his voice demanding. None of their minds gave away anything though. They just parroted back what was happening in front of them, like multiple televisions playing the same channel. He could tell that Aro was trying to keep his mind from Edward, and doing a good job of it, but he could hear small things; like how Aro's two brothers had refused to take part in what they thought was insane or the predatory way he was analyzing Edward, sizing him up for flaws in a instinctive way long ago learned from his fledgling days as a newborn, when things were more difficult for their kind.

Aro spread his arms wide in a gesture of greeting and exclaimed, "Edward, my boy! Why don't we get to know each other before we discuss topics of business." He stepped down from his thrown and attempted to grab a hold of the boy's bare arm, but Edward, one step ahead, successfully avoided the contact.

"No," said Edward, the words shaking with rapidly building anger, "I have no wish to know you better. I have come here for Bella."

Aro saw the automatically defensive stance the boy took on with his mention of Bella. He instinctively continued on with the subject, formulating a plan without even thinking about it. "I don't think she wishes to see you, Edward. She expressed a wish of solitude from everyone." He took a breath, timed it right, adding the proper amounts of polite regret and the underlying hint of dismissal and said, "Especially you."

The reaction from the boy delighted Aro. He almost visibly flinched as an insecure voice rose within him, saying, _That is why she left. She doesn't want you. She never did_. Still, he hid his internal pain as best as he could and countered with, "You're lying."

Seeing through the brave face Edward put on, Aro continued to plunge the boy further into indecisiveness and uncertainty. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, Edward, but you were only a brief fascination to her. She didn't want to bother with a messy explanation of why she no longer wished to be with you, so she just…_left_." With care, he thought back to what Isabella had said earlier, knowing that it must have been a lie but omitting that from his thoughts, only repeating her monotone words in his mind. _"He was a brief mistake…I never loved him."_

As the boy undoubtedly saw her emotionless face, heard the words he had feared all along, he took a step back. Pain shot across his face and his mouth opened and closed with undeniable heartbreak. "No," he finally managed to whisper. "_No_. It can't be true, _isn't _true." Edward pulled a silver bracelet from his pocket and stared at it pleadingly, like it would tell him a solution to this shattering comment.

He tried to find fault in the memory Aro was thinking of, but couldn't. It didn't have any hesitations like other fabricated stories had and showed all sensory reactions as only a true memory could. He was speaking the truth.

Edward spiraled then. His emotions were no longer balancing on the edge of a cliff but plummeting downward into the sea of despair that lay below. His eyes frantically searched the room for an escape, an answer, but none came. All around him the thoughts of the guard rose up and knocked him over like a tidal wave. Edward felt like he was suffocating from the pure and terrible agony of it all.

And out of writhing chaos of his collapsing world, Edward heard a voice, clear and crisp, the complete contradiction of what he was now, speaking to him. "Do you want the pain to go away Edward?"

The only way he could ever see the hurt leave was if he had Bella, his ever elusive and unrequited love. "Yes," he mumbled, hoping that if he said it that this would be a dream of some sort. "I can't stand it."

"Then," said the voice, "we will make it go away. _All of it_." Aro half-turned to a young woman behind him. "Would you mind?"

She stepped forward swiftly, her dark ruby eyes focused on the kneeling boy. She brushed a lock of black hair from her face, and then settled both of her palms on the boy's face. He barely noticed her feather light touch, as caught up in the throes of despair that he was. She tapped into her power, pulling at invisible threads in his mind, creating connections and ties, demolishing others with no regret.

When she finished, she dropped her hands from the boy's face and stepped back to Aro's side. The ruler took her hand in his, feeling for himself what she had done. He smiled to himself and said, "Good work, Chelsea."

000

Bella sat in her room, the same room she had been confined to years ago. It was sparse; only a bookcase and Victorian lounge chair, taken from some unused room in the castle no doubt, stood within its walls. The Volturi, anticipating her, had tried to furnish it with lavish tapestries, dark wood masterpieces of furniture, and first edition books, but they had swiftly found it all outside her door within an hour in tiny fragments of what they had once been. Only the books had stayed, though, because in the time it would take for another opportunity to escape, she would have countless hours to fill with a healthy occupation.

But now, no book could hold her attention. Something seemed off in her depressingly small universe.

Ominously, she heard a knock at her door. She wanted to ignore it, as she with most of the guard who came calling on her every now and then, but a scent pulled at her senses. It was unbearably tempting and utterly familiar, like the sweetest of dreams. That smell propelled her unto her feet and pushed her across the room. Bella gripped the door handle for a moment, hesitating, before she opened it.

What she saw was impossible to believe.

There, standing like he belonged in the foreboding walls of the Volturi castle, was Edward. A choked sob came to her lips; she immediately threw her arms around his neck, burying her face into the soft cotton of his shirt. Happiness, a concept that seemed foreign to her only a few minuets ago, welled within her body.

Bella was so overcome by the emotions that took over that she didn't at first realize that Edward hadn't moved a muscle. He just stood solidly in place, seemingly tolerating her contact with her. She took a step back and looked up into his face, a thing so loved and cherished to her that the startling change in demeanor shocked her.

Those eyes were not the passion filled orbs she had seen during their past meetings. His lips, which were normally tilted in a glorious crooked smile, were turned down at the sides. Every line and plane in his face and posture spoke one thing, loud and clear, to Bella: indifference. Bitter, hardhearted indifference…

…toward_ her_.

* * *

**For those of you that don't know, ****Chelsea can manipulate the bonds of relationships.**

**I'd love it if you told me what you think.**


	8. Chapter 8

**I am so _so_ sorry that it took this long. My teachers decided that it'd be real fun if they all grouped together and assign a different, but extremely complicated, project for every one of my classes, Health included. So instead of writing this like I wanted, I had to do essays about the French bourgeois and build large models of plant cells. Again, I am _very_ sorry.**

**Disclaimer: Why couldn't _I_ have that dream...  
**

* * *

Chapter Eight:  
In Which Help Comes from an Unexpected Source

Felix stepped out of the castle hurriedly and ducked into an alleyway a few streets over before he felt it was safe enough to press his phone once more to his ear. "Okay, Tanya," he said, exasperated, "why did you call me?" The sudden call of a long-ago lover is never something Felix looked forward to taking part in.

"It's about Isabella and Edward," answered in the same sultry voice he remembered from all those years ago, when he had been stationed in Paris for a year and had met Tanya while she was on a holiday. In his mind's eye, he could see her golden eyes, so strange and exotic to him then, and the shape of her ruby lips as they formed words. Those days had been good, though brief. When he was given a higher rank and reassigned to guard the Volturi castle itself, he and Tanya had agreed that breaking it off would be less trouble for the both of them. There had been no contact, until today.

"What about them? They are in no harm here."

"But it is wrong!" shouted Tanya, her clear voice breaking in an anguish he had never heard in her normally tightly controlled speech. "This wasn't what I had wanted to happen, Felix. You have to believe me when I say that I never intended to hurt them."

"You mean you never intended to harm the _boy_," spat Felix. "You wanted Isabella out of the way, not even caring how, so that you could have him. You forget that I _know_ how your mind works, Tanya. You will do whatever is necessary to get what you want. And this Edward was just some poor fellow that became a challenge to you." As stunned silence met him from her side of the line, Felix looked up and saw that the sun had progressed in its arch across the sky, shortening the shadows around him. He withdrew back as far as he could and looked around for any witnesses. He wouldn't be able to last much longer if he wanted time to get back to the castle.

When Tanya finally decided to speak, it wasn't in the angry, whip-like way he had anticipated, but a low murmur of vulnerability. That alone made Felix forget about the looming danger of discovery from the sun overhead. "I know that my actions were selfish and prideful, but I want to set them straight. In Paris, you used to have such dreams of keeping our people safe and being a _protector_ from any evil. What do you think now, Felix, when you have turned into the pathetic henchman instead of the noble hero you always wished to be?"

Felix's former doubts about his masters flew up in his mind, revolving in a slow, accusatory dance. "I don't know what you are talking about," he lied.

"Yes, you do. I don't know all the facts here, but I'm pretty good at guessing. They see the power that this girl had and ripped her away from her family, changing her to be one of the 'honorable guards.' But she doesn't like it there, so one day she finally manages to escape and find a life of her own. The only downside is that now she's afraid that you will find her, so she lives a terrible kind of half-life that only knows caution and fear of discovery.

"Then," she continued doggedly, desperate to prove her point, "one day, she falls in love with someone that returns her feelings just as much. But she can't be with him because he is in danger by extension, so she leaves. Then, your people pick her up and keep her in the castle, doing something to the love of her life to make her be unable to leave. I've seen the Volturi at work before, Felix, and it's always been cruel and merciless. Now tell me: _What did your master do to them?_"

Torn between the injustices that he had taken part in and the crumbling loyalty to his superiors, Felix finally buckled under the pressure. "Aro used Chelsea on the boy. She's manipulating his emotions so that he feels nothing for Isabella."

"Why didn't Aro do it the other way around? Why did he only affect Edward?"

"It's Isabella's power; she's a shield. No mental powers can work on her."

Tanya didn't speak for a few moments, but when she did, he could hear the smirk in her voice and practically see the gears working furiously in her head. "I think I'll be able to set things right. Will you help me?"

Felix looked down at the receding shadows and didn't bother to take another step back. It seemed that danger was approaching in his near future no matter what he did. "Yes, Tanya. I'll help you."

"Then there is hope for you yet."

000

Edward felt…odd.

It wasn't as if he had forgotten something. In fact, all of his memories of vampire life, and many of his human, remained perfectly intact. It just felt as though something had gotten left behind. Some vital thing that was running desperately after him, but every time it was _this close_, it met with a foe or unseen obstacle and fell back again.

He had a good idea that it was about the girl though, that Isabella Swan. He sat in the room the Volturi had given him, going over his memories of her. They were good ones, in which he was happy and smiling in her presence, love apparent for the both of them as they were together. He knew the reason why he had traveled all over the world for her, why he had never given up, why it was either her or death to him: love. That pesky little emotion that he could once remember having felt for the brunette girl, but found himself unable to muster now.

Actually, he couldn't think of _any_ emotion to describe how he felt for her know. There was no hatred, no pity, no adoration, not even a dab of compassion. She was just there, like the wallpaper of someone else's living room; you didn't really think about it one way or another. It simply existed. _She _simply existed to him.

But every time he thought that to himself, he felt a pause, like something was trying to speak up but found itself suddenly gagged. It would make frantic gestures and mime what it had wanted to say, but Edward never quite got what it meant. That certain part of him, the part that actually _understood_ what was being rendered mute, was missing.

That irked Edward. He knew from the minds of others that emotions do not just simply disappear; they stay with the person, festering or fading away. But never, _ever_, do they leave suddenly, in an untraceable moment, with nothing left behind. So why had _every_ feeling he had for Bella disappeared?

Edward stood up from the antique lounge chair he had been sitting on and tread quickly to the door of his room. Without thinking about his path, his feet took him to the throne room where he knew Aro would be. The guards let him past without moving an inch, their minds too busy trying not to think at all to even acknowledge him. From one of their minds, he heard nothing but the name "Chelsea," but Edward disregarded it. He often heard that name around him but didn't know the person himself.

Aro stood up and greeted Edward when he entered the room, wishing him a good morning and asking him if he wanted to join him for an afternoon meal.

"No," Edward said, but because he felt nothing but a kind of familial affection and need to please, added, "thank you, though."

Aro only nodded slowly with a wrinkled brow. He worried about Edward not completely embracing their lifestyle; he was set up to be the best of the guard and yet he didn't take the bait, he just sat back and refused to hurt anyone. It was like something within him was holding Edward back, telling him to wait.

Edward didn't feel bothered by these thoughts. To him, the Volturi could do no wrong. Even if they were thinking overtly menacing thoughts about him, he remained in his little cocoon of complete and utter trust. The thought of suspicion never even crossed his mind.

Aro broke himself from the troubling thoughts that preyed at his mind and turned his attention back to the boy in front of him, waiting patiently with a smile on his face. "What can I do to help you then, my boy?"

Feeling like what he was going to say would only open all the wrong doors, but saying it anyway, Edward asked softly, "What happened between Isabella and me? I _know_ that we were together, but I don't know what happened to all the…" he searched fruitlessly for the right words but failed, "…_feeling_ that was there. You had told me that she didn't want me anymore and then it just disappeared. Why?"

There was no accusatory manner in Edward's question, just a lost helplessness. Aro quickly took advantage of it. "Edward," he said, putting his arm around the boy, making sure that he was touching the skin, and turned him back to the door, "you shouldn't ask about her. Just ignore the poor girl. What happened between the two of you is unimportant now."

The quiet urging voice did not push away the thoughts of Isabella, though, but intensified the curiosity Edward now felt towards her. Feeling like there was some mystery he had to unfold, Edward asked, "Who is Chelsea?"

Aro froze and withdrew his arm like he had been shocked. From the thoughts he had obtained through the contact with Edward, he knew that the boy had heard it from the guard outside. Without pity, Aro already made up his mind to have the man executed; no one was to ruin the perfect soldier he had envisioned in his mind and was now trying to shove into an Edward-shaped mold. Feeling the worry and fear turn into rage, Aro yelled at the boy "Don't you _ever_ ask about her again!" Frantically, he pushed him out the door, slamming it on Edward's confused face and returned to his throne.

Once his emotions bubbled down, Aro thought back to what he had felt that was different about Edward. He didn't possess the lamb-like obedience that he had encountered for the past five days, but a new, unfamiliar and unexpected variable that was leading Edward to the conclusions he had been desperately trying to hide from the boy.

Now, to Aro's horror, Edward was _fighting back_.

000

Instead of the calm peace Edward had expected to find in his room, away from the stunned and sharp-edged thoughts that Aro was brooding upon in the throne room and an escape from the terrible question mark that prevailed in all of his own thoughts, it only got worse. The reason behind the sharp plummet in his already bewildering day was an unassuming bracelet on his dresser.

It had been there for the past days, in no different of a position, and he hadn't even acknowledged it. But now, Edward's mind couldn't seem to wrap around anything but the thought that it had once rested on the delicate wrist of none other than Isabella Swan. Something within him, unknown and perhaps forbidden, stirred at the sight of it.

In a daze, he took the piece of jewelry in his hand and left his room, letting his senses guide him to a place his mind, which felt disoriented from that clawing piece of him that was trying to escape from underneath whatever oppressor had it contained, didn't quite know yet.

Soon, Edward discovered where his quickly moving and oddly urgent footsteps were taking him: to Bella's room. As he approached it from the door on the far end of the hall, he could already smell the heady and intoxicating scent of freesia, luring him closer and closer. He could just imagine her on the other side of that aged wooden door, reading one of the books he had seen in the towering bookcases of her cabin in Washington, her long brown hair falling over her face, which would surely be scrunched into a look of concentration as the story entranced her even further, and her golden eyes tracing the words and sentences as she wondered about the fate of the protagonist.

Compelled by this mental image, Edward reached one long, ice pale hand out toward the door, preparing himself to knock on it. His mind speeded up, carrying over to when she would open it, to how she would look upon his face. In his imagination, Edward first saw that she would be happy, oh so happy, to see him, love apparent in her shining eyes. But soon that image shifted, leaving her beautiful face marred with a sadness Edward knew that he was responsible for.

His hand stopped in its course as his resolve wavered. She didn't want to see him. The last time they had been in the same room, and only in passing, she looked like she was physically in pain at just the sight of him and ran away as quickly as possible.

_Why am I even here? _he asked himself. Edward felt like he was awakening from a dream and fought to shake off the whispering vapors of thoughts that ran away with the driven feeling he had just experienced. That something within him stirred painfully in defeat, knowing that it had lost this time, when it was only _this close_.

Edward backed away from the door, hitting the wall behind him and turning to the side so that his forehead was in contact with the rough stone wall that had been worn down from centuries of simply being in existence. With one hand, Edward pinched the bridge of his nose in a display of frustration, of panicky unknowing. "What," he whispered to himself, "is happening to me?"

Instead of answering that question, which could only open doors to rooms that held painful truths, he fled. Edward ran down the halls of the Volturi castle in a frenzy, ignoring the questioning thoughts of those he all but knocked to the ground as he passed. In no time he was back in his room, pacing furiously and asking himself what he had just done before. The answer seemed horrifying and puzzling enough to keep his repressed mind reeling for the next few hours.

Edward didn't know why, but he… just had to hear the sound of her voice.

000

Tanya had told her family that she and Kate were going shopping. This was a lie. She had also told them that they would be back before five, and that she would then help Eleazar with choosing that year's charity to donate a startling amount of money to. This too was a lie. Perhaps the only thing that wasn't a lie was when Tanya had been making her hurried exit and Alice had stopped her. The pixie didn't waste time when she said, "Promise me that you will try your best." Tanya had did as she was commanded, and hoped to God that the feeling running through her veins after she had agreed was the great rush of truth, not the nausea of guilt.

Now, they were speeding down empty roads in the fastest car Tanya owned to an airport. With the air whipping through the windows she hadn't even realized were open and through her strawberry blond hair, her eyes focused on the horizon ahead of them, her jaw pushed out in an open challenge to anything that dared cross her, Tanya looked like a walking example for someone you didn't want to question. So Kate didn't.

One might think that when Tanya missed the three available turnoffs to any shopping area within a ten mile radius, Kate might have suspected that something was not quite right, but then that would be a vast understatement of how deep the bonds of the Denali sisters ran. Kate _knew_ that they were never going to go shopping in the first place, knew, or at least had a vague idea, about where they were going and why. She didn't need to ask, and if Tanya felt like she needed to explain, then she would.

Tanya's firm and resolute silence was only broken once, when they got to the airport and she demanded for two tickets she had reserved under the name Denali from the man behind one of the counters, who was old enough to know that the angel before him was out of his league but stupid enough to entertain the thought that if he played his cards right, he would have a chance. The man took a breath, checked his breath as discreetly as he could, smoothed his thinning hair back, and, thinking that this was finally his big chance to be the man he had always aspired to be, began to say-

"Don't even," was what he found interrupting his not even uttered words. Those two words, spoken in the malicious and threatening voice of a woman he couldn't even dream of having, would haunt the poor man for the rest of his life. "I have no time for any foolishness. Give. Me. The. _Tickets_." The man handed them over as quickly as he could; managing to spill his coffee all over the brand new sweater he was wearing. As he yelped and jumped up to his feet, Tanya strutted away, Kate following behind after throwing a quick look of apology to the man.

Kate wanted to say something, to see if Tanya was alright, to ask where they were going. She _wanted _to, but she didn't. When they boarded the plane and Kate heard a voice overhead tell them of the destination, Kate turned to Tanya with wide, perhaps even frightened, eyes. She had suspected, but to actually _know_ that they were going to willingly step into the lion's waiting den sent shivers down her back. Kate only said one word. "Edward?"

And to that, Tanya nodded once, her tense neck barely moving to show the sign of it.

The plane continued on its course, into the forebodingly looming future that lay more and more closely ahead for two of its passengers, leaving a trail of private prayers and hurried wishes in its wake.

000

Underneath the refined and polished halls of the Volturi castle, the glittering yet unused banquet rooms, and the private suites of the most dangerous collection of beings that has ever managed to stay under one, albeit very large, roof, there were the dungeons. These torture chambers, filled with instruments that only the _truly_ sick and cruel, something the Volturi had no lack of, could imagine, were burrowed deep underground.

The brothers that made up the heads of the Volturi denied that they ever used these out-of-date rooms for their enemies. Oh no, power had made it so that unspeakable acts could be done within the open light of day. Why journey so far to do something you could easily have done in the comfort of your own throne room?

So the dungeons remained empty, save for the twining spiders that made it an empire of thin strands and gentle patterns; or, very recently, the woman that had taken up residence upon the dusty, disused floor.

Chelsea sat with her legs tucked beneath her, her hands palm down on the floor as they chaotically spasmed open and closed, and her blood red eyes open and staring unfocused at the opposite wall. Her normally perfectly wavy hair, as black as the ink that Death would most assuredly write with, was mussed in all the wrong places, her expensive clothes covered in grime. She would have noticed her imperfect appearance and rushed to fix it as quickly as she possibly could, if it were not for the incredible struggle going on within her.

She had retreated down to the faraway depths of the dungeons in order to more aptly control her hold on one of the minds overhead. None of the other ties she kept up were as strong, or as persistently difficult, as the young copper-haired boy's, so, she had thought, by getting out of range for all of the petty distractions, she would still have a good hold on his.

This was true, but it didn't quite work to her advantage. The other ties were thrown out of her mind as soon as she made it this far underground, but the boy's tie also became more difficult to handle correctly. At the first sign of weakness or decrease in stamina, the tie had started writhing within her emotional grasp; it pulled and bit and bucked her, trying to find any way that was possible to escape by.

But if Chelsea was one thing it was obstinate. She gritted her teeth, gripped the crumbling stone beneath her harder, and screwed her eyes shut, exerting all of her force toward the uncontrollable love that she was trying to extinguish. It may fight as it pleased, but it would have to beat Chelsea first. And _nothing_ had ever beaten Chelsea.

000

Edward had envisioned, when he had almost knocked on his lost love's door, that she would be content and happy within her room, doing commonplace things that she enjoyed taking part in. This was not reality, but a part of Edward that, under the influence of Chelsea or no, only wanted to protect him.

The reality of the situation was that Bella…was a wreck.

No, that was an understatement. If the living personification of a wreck were standing beside Bella, it wouldn't look even a half of how broken-hearted and scarred as Bella did. In fact, it might even look cheerful in comparison.

For the last five days, Bella felt as though her heart was being ripped out, dumped into acid, hit a few time with a heavy club that was covered in nails, repeatedly high-fived by Edward Scissor Hands, shoved off a very high building, and puréed by the kind of top of the line blender that would make normal, household items seem like dingy cardboard cutouts compared to its sleek, NASA-like technology. Her head ached with its confused and self-interrupting thoughts that swirled in out of focus like figures seen through clouds of steam. Her shoulders shook from the constant sobs that never let up. Her stomach was knotted in the unrelieved pain of sadness that took up residence there, like an infection within an open wound.

And this is when she was calmed down.

The _worse_ pain had been when she had just seen Edward, which, thank God for her sanity, only happened twice. After those incidents, sadistic torturers that reveled in pain of any kind would have looked away in a state of emotional overload. It might be feared that Bella was losing her mind and touch with reality from the emotional trauma that was constantly being inflicted upon her, but it was quite the opposite, actually. Bella was all too much aware of what was reality, too conscious of the truth, too alert to the one, simple fact that was now shaping up her life: Edward didn't love her, and she must live the rest of her terribly long life with that ravaging her mind and heart.

A knock sounded at her door; ringing with loud, hard authority. Bella made no movement, made no sound in response. Not that the person was expecting it; instead, he opened the door slowly and stepped inside. The look of the beautiful girl that was torn to pieces strengthened his assurances in what he was about to do.

Felix cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Miss Swan? Master Aro has asked me to escort you on a hunting trip to the forest outside of Volterra. Many deer roam the woods and you will be able to find your food quickly." She made no response, so he tried harder. In an entirely real and earnest tone, he added, "Your eyes have gotten very dark, Miss Swan, and you might have trouble restraining yourself when the humans enter the castle during the next tour."

That seemed to wake Bella up momentarily, for she rose to her feet and turned to Felix with eyes that were blacker with misery than hunger. Still mute, she let Felix take her arm and lead her through the castle, and into the discreetly black town car that was waiting at the side exit of the castle. Felix didn't bother to try and start a conversation with her as he drove them out of the city limits, out from under the watchful eyes of his fellow guard members. He knew that she was catatonic now, unable to even process anything but the pain of her heartbreak. Soon enough they were on a winding trail in the promised forest, completely out of sight on all sides by the abundance of trees and foliage around them.

But they weren't alone. Felix pulled the car over when he was close enough to the two figures that had their backs turned away from the newcomers, only their long blond hair and statuesque figures giving any indication to who they were.

As Felix helped her out of the car, Bella seemed to finally come to her senses. Her eyes focused upon the strangers, analyzing the distinctly non-animalistic way that they moved their hands and flipped their hair. Her lips formed words that weren't spoken before she finally managed to ask, "Who are you?"

The taller of the blonds, whose hair had more of a strawberry tint to it, turned to face Bella. As she assessed the brunette for a moment, Bella realized that she too had golden eyes. Finally, the woman met Bella's gaze and answered her question. "We're from the Denali clan, and we've come to help."


	9. Chapter 9

**Here's a little Thanksgiving treat for all of the people that aren't already in a turkey coma. I hope you enjoy this as much as your dinners.**

**Disclaimer: If the ownership of **_**Twilight**_** was won through a match of Rock, Paper, Scissors, Stephenie Meyer would have the rock while I continuously pick scissors.**

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Chapter Nine:  
Detailing the Events that are Considered Spectacular for Some

"Alice," Jasper said in a desperate voice, trying to get something other than a cryptic message from her lips, "what do you mean by 'Everything should be on path now'?" He tried to restrain the confusion and frustration that he was feeling from spreading to everyone in the house – which would no doubt cause a skyrocketing number of sharp remarks and twitches – but felt it slowly slipping out of his control. Downstairs, he could hear Rosalie suddenly get up and leave the room where she had been talking to Eleazer and Carmen in an air of guilty agitation.

Yet Alice did not stop her distracted pacing across the room. One hand pulled a spike of her ink black hair to the side while the other toyed with the hem of her equally black skirt. She didn't seem to have heard her husband until he repeated his question once more, and then she only acknowledged it with a tilt of the head and a soft "hmm?"

From his seat at the end of their bed, Jasper reached out a long arm to grab hold of her stick thin one and pull her into his lap. "Though your mysterious tendencies are very attractive, I still need to know when and why important things, such as why Edward has not contacted us and where Tanya and Kate disappeared to, happen. That way, we can perhaps, oh, I don't know, _do something_ about it."

Alice's eyes finally focused on her husband's face, a face she had long ago memorized and loved with every bit of her soul. She placed one small, pale hand on his angular cheek and said, "There is nothing _we_ can do, though, Jazz. The stage has been set; it all depends on whether or not they know the proper lines or not now." She sighed a sweet, mournful sigh. "I just…wish that it wouldn't all be up to _them _now. I feel as though they are so controlled by the rush of events that they cannot keep a clear head and look toward the possibility of happiness that can be their future. It's as though, by not doing further, it will be _my_ fault if it turns out wrong."

"So there are no choices for us, Alice? No further alternative?"

"Nothing that hasn't already been done. If we interfere now, especially with Edward, it can lead down some bad paths." Alice stared into Jasper's eyes, her emotions growing more hopeless as the seconds passed. Her bottom lip trembled uncertainly, her small frame shuddered, and she threw her tiny body into his leonine one, holding on as though her sanity depended upon it. "What can I do when both the present and the future become so uncertain to me? I have no steady footing, only varied outcomes for the ones I love, most awful in their end."

Jasper returned his wife's embrace tightly, doing his best to soothe her with his love and absolute certainty that she could not make such a mistake. When her emotions leveled out, displaying her thankfulness that she had him in her life, he pulled back and smoothed her chaotic hair. "What I still don't understand, love, is the reason for Tanya being there."

"That," said a quiet voice from the hallway "is my fault." Jasper turned his head to see Rosalie leaning against the doorway with the same shame he had felt in her before doubling with her words. "I pushed her to go."

"Why, Rose?"

Taking a step into the room and collapsing into a chair, she brushed her curls back from her face and admitted, "Tanya had told the Volturi about Edward's girl, Isabella. They found out where she was and took her away, leading Edward by the nose to follow. I was just so angry to know that she had done this just to get the girl out of the way that I…just exploded. She's gone because of _me_. Our family was falling apart, and I only shoved it further…" Rosalie's voice was smooth and her face was expressionless, trying not to let anyone know of her distress, but Jasper could feel that it hit deeply within her, eating away at her thoughts.

He was attempting to find something comforting to say to his sister, but the sharp answer of Alice jarred his mind. "Don't say that, Rose!" She swiftly stood from Jasper's lap and moved to kneel before Rosalie, her face now stern, lost of the pain that had been marring it only moments before. "If you hadn't confronted her, then Tanya would have only stayed here in despair. Without her going over to at least _try_ and help would lower Edward's chances of ever getting back to himself drastically. It would take _years_ for him to realize…to even have an idea…and she'd be devastated…so desperate to make him remember what it felt like when they were together…" Alice shook her head sharply; expelling whatever thought caused the painful future that could have been. "_You_ did more than I have Rosalie; you, at least, gave them a chance."

Their eyes met and something like thankfulness passed between them; thankfulness that Rosalie did what Alice couldn't do, thankfulness that Alice could comfort her in her time of need.

They stayed in the room for the next hour, not talking, but second guessing the events that were taking place in the fortress of the Volturi. Silently they hoped, continuously they prayed.

000

Denali coven. Those two words struck a chord in Bella's mind, bringing up a hurriedly hidden thought (the better to not remember him) of the cabin in Forks. She almost whimpered when the happy memory washed over her. It had been, for that too brief time, perfect. He had told her that they were going to Alaska, to Denali… "Are you," she started before she had to clear her throat in order to rid herself of the rasp in her voice, "are you Edward's family?"

Tanya sneered. There was something about the reverent, completely and lovingly tender way she was said Edward's name that did not bode well with her. It reminded her, in fact, of how Edward himself had said _her_ name before he had left; like it was the most brilliant word that ever existed. "Somewhat."

The girl across from her wrapped an arm around her stomach as she said, "If you've come to get him, I – I must warn you. He's…not himself." Bella tried to hold an expression of something other than hopeless sadness, but it broke apart quickly. "Edward…wants to be with _them_." Though she wasn't looking at him, Felix took a step back from that one word. It was pointed at him, full of blame that was wholly deserved on his part. "I'm sorry that you have come all this way," continued Bella, words spilling from her mouth with no way to stop them. "It was my fault he was here at all…"

Looking upon Bella as she placed a hand in front of her mouth, muffling the sod that had escaped, Tanya wondered how Edward could possibly be attracted to her. This girl was simpering, dependant, and cluelessly incompetent. Why would he want _her_ when he could have _Tanya_, who was none of those things, who was infinitely better in every way possible?

Against her own wishes, Tanya could hear a voice rise up within her, saying with maddeningly reasoning words, "_That's a lie, and you know it. She's beautiful; you can tell that even from the state she's in. And she stayed here, even if it hurts her every second more and more. Would _you_ have done that? Do you even _care_ about him a tenth of what she does? No, you don't."_ It shocked Tanya to finally hear that, especially from herself. Of _course_ she cared about Edward. She was here, wasn't she?

When Tanya snapped out of her own mental argument, she saw that Kate was holding the girl's hand reassuringly, telling her that they were all here to help her and Edward, Felix included. Great, even Tanya's own _sister_ had chosen her side. Tanya, deciding to break the happy moment, said, "What do you know about your power, Bella?"

She looked shocked to hear the question, but answered anyways. "Not much. Just that it blocks mental powers. I…I haven't wanted to learn more about it." The truth was that Bella was _afraid_ of her gift. It was the reason they had changed her, the reason they had killed her parents. In her mind, if she used it, that would be further satisfying the Volturi, maybe even giving them a connection to her. So she let it sit within her, ignoring it when it would suddenly spring forth and try to do something she didn't understand. "Why should it matter?"

Tanya gave Bella a look that said she wasn't fit to be scraped off her circa 1924 six inch stiletto and turned to Felix. "This will take more time than I had thought. Can you manage bringing her here again?"

He cast his eyes to the direction they had come from, like he was expecting a horde of his fellow guards to be sprinting down the road this instant. He ran over the schedule of the castle in his mind and remembered that there was a tour group expected tomorrow afternoon. "I might be able to request that Bella can take supervised leave of the castle while the feast takes place. I will ask Marcus, he doesn't tolerate what Aro is doing too well and will be more sympathetic."

"Good." Tanya strode to him and pulled Felix by the hand to Kate. "Isabella," she began, "my dear sister has a special talent. She can produce electric currents over her skin, making any attacker stunned with a touch. Felix has volunteered to be the attacker. What _you_ must do, Isabella, is push your shield away from yourself and over Felix. If you can do this, then you can take Edward out of Chelsea's power."

Disbelief colored Bella's features with the possibility that this was much too good to be true. "Really?"

"Really." She now moved Felix's hand to Kate's waiting arm. His body shook for a moment before he quickly withdrew his hand, bending forward and resting his forearms on his knees. Felix's handsome face was contorted into pain before he controlled himself and stood up straight again, both him and Kate waiting for Tanya's word to continue. "Now, Isabella," she said, "we practice."

000

From its twirling path of back and forth movement, as hypnotic as a golden watch in the practiced hands of a magician, the bracelet held the rapt Edward's attention. He could see the initials of its past owner on the large charm turn and circle. One minute, the heart would be full of nothing but her name, the next it would turn to the back and be empty.

He, unfortunately, realized the irony of this situation.

Edward's mind migrated between the reason behind his sudden disappearance of affection for Bella and the puzzling urge to see her. He didn't know how to navigate this situation. One moment, it was like something was struggling for freedom within him, just at the point of escape, then the next it would be reined back into its confinement, under lock and key. Edward felt like he was being influenced, but the problem was that he didn't know which was the original part to start with. Did he ever really love Bella? Was it just some empty feeling she briefly inspired in him?

_No!_ shouted a deep, pleading voice. _She meant every bit! You _both_ meant it all-_ But then it would be shoved down, the jailer once more tying careful straps to bind it before standing back to wait. It knew that it would manage to get free again, so the jailer grimly stood by in anticipation.

Needing an escape from his warring mind, Edward left his room quickly. He trod confidently through the passageways before he reached the second story balcony, which overlooked the side of the castle and saw over the wall to the forests beyond the city. Outside, in the brisk evening air, he could see a delicate night sky spread above him, dotted with unbearably clear and beautiful stars that framed a luminous full moon hanging in the air with more grace than Edward would have thought possible.

A movement, a dark car winding its way through a lonely forest road, caught his attention. Edward watched its slow progress to the city gate, where it was let past with no trouble, and to the Volturi castle itself. It came to a stop in the drive below Edward, the thoughts of the driver already reaching to him. He was musing over how well someone had done, that they could really pull this off. The man got out and Edward recognized Felix, who walked to the other side of the car and opened the door.

Out stepped a lovely woman. Though he knew her looks should _not _have an effect on him, he sucked in a quick breath at the sight of Bella on this storybook-like night. She conversed briefly with Felix, their voices too low and his mind too focused on not being found out that he didn't know what they said. Then Felix got in the car and drove it around to where the garage was, leaving Bella seemingly alone under the brilliantly lit sky.

Edward leaned over the side of the balcony, feeling as though his body was magnetized towards hers. He watched with unexplainable interest as she sat down on the nearest bench and stared intently up toward the moon. Her eyes were narrowed in thought, her brow furrowed in concentration. It seemed like she was trying hard to do something; but what, Edward didn't know.

Leaning even further to get a better view of those angelic eyes, Edward didn't notice shower of pebbles that ran down the side of the building when he shifted his hand. They tinkled down over the old stones, making a barely noticeable sound on their way down. But, in the garden below, Bella did hear them. And she looked up.

He could clearly see a myriad of emotions run across her face: shock, pain, curiosity, sadness, hope, and something he oddly hoped was love, to name a few. But there was also the determination as she locked eyes with him. Bella was trying to convey something, to get a message across, but he just couldn't understand.

After several moments of unbroken and solid eye contact, she finally dropped her gaze, releasing Edward from the state her golden eyes had put him in. The hope on her face faded and frustrated disappointment took over. Without looking at him once more, she stood and ran to the castle entrance, disappearing from his sight.

"Bella…" he murmured, a halfway point from the part of him that wanted him to yell it and the part of him that wanted to stay silent. She didn't stop, but he wished she had. Edward felt that one more look, one more clue, would have been all he needed to know the truth…

The feeling dwindled and faded, leaving him with only the moon and stars as company on this lonely night.

000

"Again," demanded Tanya the next afternoon. "Try _again_."

Bella looked up at her wearily. They had been doing this nonstop for hours and her head was throbbing with the pain of effort. It didn't seem like she was helping her ability at all; in fact, it felt like it was getting _worse_. She couldn't properly stretch the shield more than a few inches off her body, let alone enough to cover Felix. "I _can't_, Tanya. I'm just not able to make this work."

"Then _keep trying_, Isabella," she growled back. "How can you project this around Edward if you can't even-"

"You're doing great Bella," interrupted Felix. "The amount of progress you have made in such a short amount of time is amazing." He smiled encouragingly, but Bella could see how he shifted his arm, the one that had been in almost non-stop contact with Kate's electrified one for the past hour, with pain. Despite her earlier feelings of hatred, Bella was thankful that Felix was here. Knowing that one of her supposed enemies was actually good and just had made her feel some hope. "Maybe," he tried suggesting, "you should just imagine that I am Edward. If you focus on the fact that you do not want him in pain, it would help."

Bella shook her head with sadness. "No, you don't understand. I…I saw Edward last night, and I tried – I _really_ tried – to put the shield over him, but I couldn't. I'm not strong enough for this…I won't be able to do it…" The pain of the night before flooded through her again. Maybe, it didn't work because that was how Edward really felt; there was no way to block him from an influence that wasn't even there.

Tanya snorted. "Keep going!" she ordered. "Don't quit, don't be weak! You have no room for any kind of failure here; you have one chance and one chance only. Now try again." When Bella made no move, Tanya looked her up and down with her golden eyes, contempt apparent in them. "I knew I shouldn't have bothered to come here. It's hopeless."

"Tanya!" growled Felix, stepping from his place beside Kate to in between the women who were staring at each other like two bandits in a Mexican standoff. "Leave her be, she doesn't deserve this. She's been through so much pain it's amazing that she is even willing to try. Let her at least have a break."

"Oh, now you're the hero, huh?" jeered Tanya. "_Now_ you decide to stand up for the little guy? Must I remind you that the main source of her pain is your fault, Felix? You did, after all, bring Edward to the castle, the reason that he is under Chelsea's power in the first place."

"Tanya, I swear by that all that is holy, if you don't stop right now, I'll-"

"You'll _what_? Hurt _more_? Destroy _more_? _Kill more_? You've done it so much it must be practically ingrained in your being!"

Felix took a threatening step forward, trying to control his anger and resentment toward the Hellish angel before him. How could a woman he had loved so much turned into the bitter harpy before him? "This isn't a joke, Tanya. Leave now, and don't-"

"Kate!" shouted Tanya. "Now!" Tanya stepped back several feet in a second as her sister dove for Felix with the precision of a deadly animal, her electric and painful hands outstretched in a very hostile way. Felix stood motionless in front of Bella, keeping his ground out of sheer surprise. For one so used to the underhanded and cunning ways of his fellow vampires, he had not expected the Denali sisters to turn against those that were assisting them.

Bella, in pure instinct, had also reacted to their surprising change in action. She felt something within her break free and explode from within her as Kate's hands grew closer to Felix. The man had tried to stand up for her and now he was going to suffer the fullest power of Kate's attack. Knowing that she had to stop this, fueled by the anger of betrayal from Edward's family, and being led by a new force within her, it felt like Bella's mind expanded, climbing out around her until she could feel Felix within her mental grasp.

Kate landed on top of Felix, her hands splayed over his exposed face. But there was not a cry of pain of even a blackout like what she had grown accustomed to after decades of her mastered power; instead, Felix stared up at her with wide, disbelieving eyes. Then, they both looked over to Bella, who was standing with more confidence and power than they had ever seen in her before.

But, as she held on to the shield around Felix, Bella didn't look at the two people at her feet. No, she looked at the blonde several feet away from her. There was no defeat or anger in Tanya's face, but a smug expression with only the barest hint of a smile around her perfect lips. Bella's mind, still feeling so charged from the release of her power, quickly connected the dots and she asked, "You planned this, didn't you?"

Kate was getting her feet, looking apologetically toward Felix before walking to her sister's side. Tanya's face didn't change when she said, "You needed pushing and I was the one who had to do it." She paused for a moment before adding with a slight smile, "Good job."

Bella returned the smile more fully, feeling a kind of rough-edged respect for Tanya, who did what she felt right in any situation and wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty or look bad while doing it. Tanya began to talk plans and strategies for the evening, then. She detailed entrances, exits, threats, possible scenarios, and the construction of the castle while constantly reminding them that, "We _must _be quick and get this all done before they notice we are gone. Time is the only thing that we _need _on our side."

And around them, Bella's shield pulsed; growing and shrinking to the merest of her thoughts, under the frighteningly easy control of the brunette, who hoped that it could protect them from the dangers that lay within in the Volturi walls.

000

This night didn't have the star-strewn skies and glorious moon of the night before. No, there were only the blank faces of dark clouds overhead, taking up every inch of space. To Chelsea, who was growing more suspicious and paranoid at the foreboding that was growing within, it seemed that the clouds were blinding the night sky, making sure that the cosmos, who always had an eye on the happenings of humanity, didn't see something.

Chelsea was in her bedroom. Having come back from the feast several hours ago, she knew that her powers would be working better, her control of the boy's mind felt so much easier; it hardly pushed her away, barely fought, and maybe even _welcomed_ the control. _Finally_, she thought to herself, _he is fully under my control._ But still she kept control, waiting for that clever bit of him to rear up and take command again.

But it didn't. Instead, that strand of his essential being within her mind, the tie to him and her, just…_vanished_.

Alarms in her head rang wildly as Chelsea frantically searched her mind for him, for that willful little boy. But she kept coming up empty. He wasn't there, or, if he was, he had found someway to evade her.

She knew that she had already spent valuable seconds in here, so she launched herself into a full sprint and made her way to the throne room. A dramatic banging door and flustered woman greeted Aro and his brothers as she gasped out, "The boy – the boy is gone!"

000

Some minutes before Edward's life changed drastically for what must be the twenty-third time in the past two years, something rather strange – no, _very _strange – happened.

This strange event took place when Edward was in the massive personal library of the Volturi. On either side, behind, across, and above him, there were countless volumes of painfully countable fortunes. The first edition _Hamlet_ in his hands alone must cost more than his birth parents' house.

In the wall before the chair Edward was currently occupying, a large fireplace was in the wall, looking big enough to hold several dozen men. He had the strongest urge, then, to feed the roaring flames further, building and building it until it burned the castle down. He shook his head hurriedly, though, out of fear of that thought. He respected the Volturi, and wouldn't do anything to hurt them because they were his family now. Right?

With this vague uncertainty, Edward's mind was sent into the clamor of yet another dispute. Opinions were voiced, blows thrown, and attacks weathered within the confused battlefields of Edward. Slamming _Hamlet_ shut with a sigh of frustration, he placed it on the table and went toward the double door out of the library. He no longer found it the haven from personal analysis that he had originally intended it to be.

The gilded doorknob turned easily in his hand and the door pulled open on well oiled hinges. What lay just outside this pristine perfection of door was not the gray stone wall he was expecting, but something, or some_one_, quite different.

Bella.

Standing uncertainly – who knew one so indecisive could look so powerful? – before him, Bella bit her full lip as her eyes darted quickly over his face. Maybe she saw the surprise that her sudden appearance had brought on, perhaps she detected that he had just been thinking, or, at least, trying not to think, about her, maybe she saw nothing in his deeply loved features but the mask of simple recognition he was trying greatly not to let slip. Edward noticed her eyes travel lower, to the closed fist that hung loosely at his side, a bright bracelet just only showing through his knuckles.

After that, the simple reminder of how they had met, what they had been through, and what they meant to each other, there was not one other thing that could hold her back any longer. Inhibitions thrown aside, Bella took two steps forward and, with a feeling of utter _rightness_, kissed Edward. She gave every fiber of herself to him in that kiss, telling him that she was his if he wanted, and set him free at the same time, pushing her shield out from her body and covering him completely.

First, Edward was surprised. He didn't know how to react to her sudden gesture, an action he couldn't understand for the life of him. But then, this…_feeling_ washed over him. The battle in his mind, the captive voice that was fighting to break out, suddenly overtook the jailer. It strove out of its cell, the chains that used to bind falling off of it with ease, and Edward's mind could now decide on the correct influence, the right idea. _It had always been Bella_, his mind rejoiced. _From the start, it had always been her_.

Shock fell away and his need for more contact grew fierce. One arm wrapped around her waist and the other found its way to her hair, pulling her even closer, deepening the embrace. In the utter heaven of this reunion of lovers, Edward didn't notice the terrified thoughts of his old puppeteer, who was wondering why she couldn't control him any longer.

With much reluctance more than a little hesitance, perhaps wondering if he would once again reject her, Bella pulled away. She noted with wonder that there was love in his dark eyes and adoration in his touch. Bella remembered her surroundings and whispered, "We have to leave."

Hand in hand, they sprinted through the castle halls, Bella leading him to a lower side exit that was flanked by Tanya and Kate and into a waiting car. The fact that a member of the guard was here, and even that the Denali girls were, didn't faze Edward at all. All he knew was that Bella trusted them, and that was fine with him. Felix drove the car through the streets of Volturi quickly, keeping to roads that were little more than alley ways and exiting the city through an unmanned gate. Soon enough, the starless night engulfed them, and they were little more than a dot on the horizon.

And Edward felt as though he was finally home, a concept he never fully understood until this moment. In her tight embrace he felt all the comfort he could possibly need and in her eyes he saw an eternity of love before them. Nothing but the shared contact between them mattered to Edward as they escaped into the night, because, after two years of frantically searching, he was finally home, forever and always with his Bella.

**

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I wanted to end a nice note, so I'm saving the bad guys for next chapter. Thank you for reading, and happy Thanksgiving!**


	10. Chapter 10

**I'm SORRY! I really didn't mean for this to take so long. In way of an explanation, this is my first story that doesn't have a complete outline or an idea of what is happening from beginning to end. So instead of knowing what I should write, I will make it up as I go along. Usually, it worked, but for this chapter, I wrote the worst first draft you could possibly imagine. The plot turned sour, important bits were left out and every decent idea disappeared before I could write it down.**

**So I got really angry, yelled a lot at my computer, and scrapped the whole thing before retreating into a mood that would make Dirty Harry look approachable. It took a while for me to feel motivated enough to write again. Thanks for waiting.**

**Disclaimer: Consider this story disclaimed.

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Chapter 10:  
In Which History is Repeated

Felix was back by Tanya's side only moments after she had snapped her cell phone shut, signaling the last call in a long line of ones that had passed between her, Eleazer, and Carlisle. He was alone, having seen Edward and Bella onto their plane minutes before. Felix sat across from her on the little café table in the airport restaurant they found private enough for the conversations that had to take place. He looked around them for the last person in their party before asking, "Where's Kate?"

"She's on the phone with a car company in Russia, trying to get a suitable car for when we arrive."

"Russia?" It seemed, to Felix at least, that Russia was a very far place for Tanya to go. It was smart, he hated to acknowledge, considering the formidable and dogged opponent he knew the Volturi to be. A small, quiet town in Russia would be the perfect place for the Denalis to go into hiding. Why then, did he feel that sting of sadness? "That sounds like a good plan," he continued in a relatively normal voice. "I suppose I should get on with my own arrangements as well." Felix leaned back in the seat and started going through his mental list of properties and friends, eliminating anything that the Volturi knew about, which was, basically, everything.

With his eyes closed in his current task, Tanya was free to look at him with a slightly perplexed expression. "Your _own_ plans?" It was only after she had spoken those words that she got his meaning. She snapped her mouth shut before, against her better judgment, opening it again to let out the most incomprehensible string of words she could remember saying.

"Oh, of course. It's not that I was even expecting you to come with _me_. No, not at all, so don't worry about that. I had just thought – since you and I have, um – well…. Forget it, I'll just, uh…" Pausing for enough time to take a self-exasperated inhale, Tanya quickly yelled at her thoughts and tried to whip them into some kind of recognizable sentence form. "What I mean to say, Felix, is that my family and I are indebted to you. We would be honored if you stayed with us."

"Your family, huh?" He had opened his eyes and leaned forward o the table, his face fighting to stay completely serious if not for the amused twinkle in his eyes and that hint of a smile he couldn't get rid of.

"Well," sighed Tanya, knowing exactly what he wanted, "_me_." She knew Felix well enough to know that he enjoyed the brief and few moments he could break through her calm exterior. Surprisingly, she didn't hate him for it, but felt more of that silly swooning feeling within her chest.

Felix smiled gently, noticing that he had the lovely warm sensation he associated with their time in Paris together. He had thought he'd never feel the coursing rush of it again.

They didn't speak because no words were needed. All the pair did was reach across the table and grasp hands, knowing that, though times have changed, genuine emotion rarely does. Felix and Tanya remained that way for quite some time, encased in the soft glow of those who just realize that love is a very important thing to have.

000

The gossip mills were turning faster than normal in the small town of Forks. It seems, or according to Susan Perry, that Isabella Swan is back in their presence after her sudden and, quite frankly, _rude_ departure from their fair town. No cause was given for _why _she had left, but Joe Turner, the owner of the gas station, was the first to see her return to town. And, he had said to his wife over the phone only minutes after, she was with a _man_.

That fact had made the already curious minds of the town frothing at the mouth to find even the slightest bit of information about who he was and why he was with the flighty Swan girl. Joe Turner hadn't given a good description of him (he claimed that the sun was in his eyes but everyone knew that he was too busy looking at Isabella Swan to care about anyone else in the world) but the couple's next stop, Tracey Goldman's little thrift store on second street, provided more information.

As she would later tell her poker buddies that night, Tracey Goldman was at the register when the two walked into the store like they owned the place. "They look like movie stars!" she will enthuse over her hand of cards. "So young, so beautiful!" Giggling angelically at a joke the boy had told before entering, Isabella went directly to the women's section of the store, choosing plain shirts and some jeans. The boy, however, found the bin of old t-shirts that Tracey found so difficult to sell. He rummaged for a moment and beamed wonderfully, captivating Tracey Goldman without even trying.

"Bella!" he called in a very smooth, very seductive, voice. "Look over here! Someone seems to have donated an entire collection of band t-shirts." With some thought, Tracey remembered that those belonged to Alex Lewis, whose wife decided that if he wanted to fool around with his secretary, than he'd have to do so without his prized band paraphernalia. Tracey Goldman continued to stare as the boy searched, letting out an exclamation like "David Bowie!" or "The Jam!" with each new find.

The young couple was done within a quarter of an hour, both setting a decent sized pile of clothing on top of the counter. Tracey Goldman, her eyes darting from the clothes she was checking and the two models before her, decided that she had a right to know what was happening. "Miss Swan, what are you doing back in town?" she asked without a trace of embarrassment. "We thought that you had gone for good."

Tracey Goldman failed to see the annoyance that crossed over the young girl's features or the smirk that briefly flickered around the boy's mouth before he said, "Bella and I went to Las Vegas." He wound a pale arm around her waist and dragged her to his side, planting a loving kiss on her cheek. "I am now proud to say that my Bella has become Mrs. Edward Masen." Then he paid for the clothes, took Bella by the hand, and left the store with their purchases.

Those two sentences, spoken in that silken voice, were repeated in whispers of disbelief all over Forks within the next hour. Despite the shocked expressions that met such a scandalous statement, though, none were more surprised than Bella herself.

"_Vegas_, Edward?" She whispered sternly in the parking lot. "We came to Forks for _hiding_, not attracting attention with our supposed elopement!"

"Actually, making the inhabitants of Forks believe that you and I are nothing more than a rash and much too good looking bride and groom is better for hiding. That woman had only seen us for a few minutes before thinking such outlandish things as us being spies or you being the daughter of a foreign king who had to run away so that it was possible for you to marry me, a modern day peasant. It is _good_ that we give them something normal and entirely believable to talk about instead of snooping around with wild assumptions that may or may not prove to be true.

"Besides," he added with a crooked smile in her direction, "that would mean that we would be in our honeymoon phase, and I'm sure the people of Forks won't find it odd that we will rarely, if ever, leave our house."

Glad she couldn't blush and her mind was blank to him, Bella arched an eyebrow. "What makes you think that _I_ would want to spend so much time with _you_?"

"Hmm," he pretended to ponder as he held open the door to the used car they had bought. Edward gently closed the door and jogged around to his side, smiling at the simplicity of it all. After so much time, so much heartache, they were free. Free to finally live the life they had been fighting for since their storm-ridden meeting. He took her hand, the one with the delicate bracelet draped at the wrist, in his and answered. "I suppose you can say that I am a strong believer in the past repeating itself, and you, my dear Bella, have _never_ been able to resist me."

Giggling lightly, Bella tightened her grip on his hand. "No, I don't think I can."

"Good," Edward replied. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

And unawares to them, the past was repeating itself in more ways than one.

000

Jane listened furtively. From the calm alcove she was standing in, she could hear down the hall, through two walls, and around the bend to the throne room, where voices not even bothering to be quiet yelled with growing anger.

"How can you take this offense, my brother?" spat the voice she knew too well to be Aro's. He used the word 'brother' like it was an obligation, a plea, and a threat. "They corrupted one of _our own guards_! Will you just stand by and let them go?" A clattering of wood off a stone floor as Aro hurled a chair down rung throughout the castle, signaling, perhaps, the rift that was steadily growing in between the rulers.

Marcus's voice, normally so calm and patient, was loud and colored with anger as he retorted, "No, _you_ are the cause of this! Do you not see what has become of you? Power has invaded your mind, poisoning what little goodness and virtue you had before, and greed blinds you to the lives you ruin in the process! We have all done terrible deeds to obtain our status, things I regret with all my heart, whatever little it may be worth. I will not let you continue your foolish ways any longer, _especially_ when it implicates a dear friend's family!"

Aro snorted. "Friend? What _friend_ would possibly assist willingly in a plot against us? It is not I that am blinded, but you! Marcus, you let yourself be fooled by his pretty manners and fail to see the threat he is to us!"

Shaking his head with obvious despair at what his brother had become, Marcus said, "You know better than I do that Carlisle is the most honest man that has ever been in our midst. You have seen his mind and the sheer will to do good that is shown in his every action. If anything, his opposition to our more recent activities should have been a clear warning of our straying."

"You have gone soft in your old age!" Aro shouted. "We are rulers! And if you refuse to do what is necessary to remain so, than I will!"

Marcus let the veneer of his indifferent mask crack. In a second, he was nose to nose with Aro, both of their clouded eyes now sharp with the anger of betrayal. "Do you not understand? Leave them be. Let them have their peace. You have torn Isabella from her family, unwillingly turned her, kept her as a prisoner, hunted her relentlessly, and used the love of her life to ensure that she would stay in your power. You have done enough to prevent her from having the life you ripped her away from."

His voice grew silent and commanding as he took a step back from Aro. The mask was once again in place. "If you pursue her any longer, you will have no home here, Aro." Then he turned his back on his brother, not able to bear how his power picked up the now crumbling bond between Aro and him. What had once been mutual caring and respect was now resentment.

Aro could only stare. His rage evaporated in his shock, not capable of comprehending the ultimatum that Marcus had just issued. Hurt sprang up from his heart, briefly making him wonder if he should listen to the seemingly sensible advice that was being thrusted upon him. But only briefly. Taking one last look at his brother's back, Aro left the room in a slow, deliberate pace.

He was halfway down the hall before he heard his name being called in the whisper of Caius. Nothing but the alarm of seeing his brother actually make an effort to speak to him caused Aro to stop in his tracks. Caius came to a halt beside him and held out his hand meaningfully.

Against his will, Aro's eyebrows shot up. The fact that Caius had chosen to remain silent during the argument had not surprised him in the slightest; he was a private man with strong beliefs in the need to uphold and honor the law. Anything that didn't directly pertain to that was of little interest or value. Aro slowly grasped his brothers hand, feeling apprehension at what he was about to see before diving in.

Images swam before Aro's mental eye. He could see the events of the past few days through Caius's eyes; the glimpses he had caught of Isabella, walking around the castle in a heartbroken daze; Edward, rubbing his forehead in confusion, his eyes flickering around him as he sought out for something he didn't yet understand; Felix, pointedly avoiding his rulers in fear of his secret being discovered. These only contained a small amount of emotion for Caius, as he did not feel more than a questioning puzzlement toward the players in a game Aro was so lost in. What surprised Aro the most was the way things looked so different through Caius's eyes; they weren't the exaggerated monsters he told himself they were, but people. Just people.

Then the thoughts came to the fight of just a few moments ago, and Aro was surprised by how violently, for Caius's standards at least, he reacted. He could see himself through his brother's eyes, teeth barred, eyes wild with more of Caius's curious perplexity wound around the memory. He didn't understand why the fight had gotten so out of proportion. No rules had been broken – the Volturi didn't keep such a tight watch over their guard as they had centuries earlier and the girl had done no real wrong.

But one thing Caius was sure of was that he did not want his family broken up. Through disjointed memories, half-thoughts, and a stirring amount of emotion, Caius mentally pleaded Aro to stay in Volterra and forget about the girl. The three had been ruling together for so long that he didn't quite know what would happen to them if one were to leave. Maybe it'd be fine, maybe they would eventually be together again, or maybe they would be overthrown, hunted for, and go insane.

Aro released Caius's hand with air of one who pretends to have the situation controlled in his own two hands. He wanted to smile for his brother, tell him that everything would be fine, but he couldn't lie now; for once, it was beyond him. Instead he took a step backwards, in the direction of Volterra's expansive garage. "I am sorry, my brother," he said. "But, sometimes, we come to the point in our lives where we must choose between continuing to pace the same tired rut we have for years or change. I don't think, no matter how hard I might try, that I could possibly amend my faults and alter my ways." His eyes avoided Caius's as he added softly, "It could just destroy me."

With his last word's ringing in the air, Aro turned and left, not even bothering to acknowledge Jane when she fell into step beside him until he abruptly said, "Get my personal guard. We're going to America."

000

"_Banking_, Carlisle? Don't you think that's a tad _too_ ironic, considering my past?"

"Edward, you need a completely innocuous job, and, sadly for you, working as a bank teller is just that. It's so boring, even, that no one would bother with a second thought or follow up question. Plus, the distinct smell of so much money in a small building will sidetrack you from any… distractions." Over the phone he sounded too forcibly calm. Edward wished that he could hear Carlisle's thoughts so that he would know the right thing to say; an apology, perhaps, to make up for all the extra effort and worry that his decisions have caused with the Cullens.

"Okay, that makes sense. But if we are trying to be unfound, why did you send us to a town the Volturi _know_ Bella has a house in? Is this one of those hiding in plain sight things?"

"For lack of a better turn of phrase, yes."

"And what about you guys? Don't you think it would seem a bit odd to the wonderful inhabitants of Forks, Washington if a large family of stunningly beautiful people move in to a house that was owned by a similarly large family of stunningly beautiful people named Cullen a decade or so ago?" Edward switched the phone from his right hand to his left, sneaking a glance at Bella, who was hanging their new clothes in the small closet with a rather loving air.

"Actually, it was only Esme and I who owned the house in 1926, a year or so after her change. And we will be fine with our name, Edward. Esme was still rather…fragile about her past living situation, making her quite adamant about calling ourselves Greene." Edward didn't need to press any farther to know that Esme still feared the slightest thought of her ex-husband destroying the dream her life had become, even after all these years. "She pretended to be blind so that she would have an excuse to stay at home and I only went to the hospital and grocer. No one will remember us."

When Edward didn't respond straight away, Carlisle jokingly asked, "What? Do our plans not appease you Edward? Would you rather have it so us dull old-folks don't embarrass you in front of Bella?"

"No, it's just…" Edward peeked around the doorway, making sure that Bella was still taking stock of things in the bathroom before he continued in a whisper, "I don't want anyone to so much as think of suspecting us. Bella has had to deal with enough catastrophes to last even one of our lifetimes; she shouldn't have to worry this time. Everything should be perfect for her."

"Don't worry, Edward," Carlisle was speaking in a low, fatherly voice of comfort. "We have done this so many times that there should be no problem. Emmett might hate the fact that he has to go to school while you don't, but he will survive. No one will think to find us in Forks, Washington."

"Thank you, Carlisle. Thank you for everything. I don't know what would have happened to me if you and the family weren't there to help me from the start. You do so much more than I could hope for and stood by me when it was dangerous. I don't deserve it."

"You're family, you and Bella; we would have been crazy to not help. We will be in Forks in two days at the latest. Give Bella my love. Goodbye Edward."

Edward closed the cell phone and walked to the bathroom, leaning against the doorframe as Bella dug through the cabinet and wrote down items that they would need. After several silent seconds, she said, "You're doing it again Edward."

"Doing what?" he asked innocently, well aware of the offending crime he had committed.

"That worrying thing he talked about." She turned to face him, the exasperation she was desperately trying to keep in place not smothering the bright eyes and glowing face of someone who is utterly happy, and wrapped her arms around his neck. "I don't think I need to tell you again that I have been taking care of myself for years. With my skills and the generous help of your family, the only chance of screwing things up is you."

Edward ignored her playful insult and pulled her closer to him. "_Our_ family, you mean."

"They think that?" The concept of being in a family was so foreign to Bella after her years of solitude that she couldn't even comprehend it. The Cullens, to her, were all gold and perfection; living examples of determined perseverance who had fought their basic instinct to make themselves into something great. Bella couldn't help but feel intimidated by them. "They don't mind me, after all the trouble I have caused?"

"Mind you? When I talked to Esme, she was practically bursting at the seams to meet you. She thinks you're an angel for being with me and curing me of my loneliness. I bet she already has the color scheme of our wedding picked out."

Plucking the list from her hand, Edward offered to pick up the things from the grocer's. "I want to hear what else they've thought of us," he called from the entry hall as he pulled on his coat. "Maybe they'll think I've kidnapped you next!" He left the house laughing, the bell-like noises drifting through the snowy landscape.

Bella listened to him back out of the driveway, not letting out the breath she had been unaware of holding until he was several minutes down the street. Wringing her hands, she stared down at the silver bracelet on her wrist. It was her single most prized possession; not only was it a reminder of the parents she could barely remember, but it was a material object that linked her to Edward and the long years it had taken to get to the point they were at now.

But _marriage_? Even when Edward had made up their ludicrous cover story, Bella hadn't thought of actually _marrying _Edward.

Perhaps it was that Bella had never had the hope that went along with marriage. All her vampire life, she had made it a point to be alone, to always be prepared to be taken away, her future lost once more… But now, now she could wish for marriage, a thing that was based on mutual love, respect, and the promise of spending the rest of their lives together. All of which she had with Edward, a man that wanted to give Bella everything she desired and more.

A wide smile graced Bella's face as she began dusting off the kitchen surfaces. She had never, not once, believed that her life could turn out like the fairytale it was.

000

Felix was not stupid. He was, in fact, a very intelligent man; that is why he had been offered the position of guarding the Volturi in the first place. Cunning came as easily to Felix as being beautiful did to Tanya.

So, when he took stock of his current situation, he was glad he had made good friends with the staff of the Volturi castle. Most were humans waiting for their chance to either join the guard or become their next meal, but there were a few vampires who did menial tasks. These vampires were changed because they were believed to have special powers just waiting for the change to be released. Sadly for them, though, the powers never came, a fault of the over zealous rulers who had not made sure before they acted.

Centuries before, they would have been killed out of disappointment, but now they were given a job, room, and protection. The rulers thought that this was a very kind and generous charity on their part, but the vampires only harbored bitter feelings toward the more powerful elders. They weren't even considered good enough to be under Chelsea's power.

So when Felix contacted one of the staff, a middle-aged woman by the name of Alexandra, he was not surprised to hear the grim delight in her voice as she hurriedly answered his questions. Somehow, her more than obvious resentment toward the Volturi made the bad news she was giving him even worse. After their conversation he felt as though there was an acidic taste in his mouth, like he had bitten into a battery.

As a human, Alexandra had exhibited genius fortune-telling skills, accurately predicting many events in the Sicilian town she was from. Later, after the Volturi had changed her, they had discovered that Alexandra was nothing more than a clever fake. She had a good ear for gossip and merely passed the rumors off as prophesies. The Volturi never got the seer they yearned for, and when news of Carlisle taking in just that in Alice Cullen stung their pride.

Felix thanked her for her valuable information, brushing off the fervent questions of whether or not it was true that the Cullens were leading a revolt by pressing the end button on the phone. The silence on the other end was a relief to him, but Felix knew that he couldn't keep the information to himself.

His disinterested and professional side took over, then. The number he had memorized was dialed with purposefully slow fingers, his response at the happy sigh of "Hello?" caught in his throat.

Knowing that he was only going to bring another round of worry and fear to a girl who didn't deserve it, Felix pushed the image of her sad eyes out of his head and said, "Yes, Bella? This is Felix… I'm afraid I have to tell you something that no one's going to want to hear."

Tight, tense silence met him on the other end of the line. Even when halfway across the world, he could practically hear the panic seeping into her mind.

"Bella, the Volturi aren't giving up. Aro had left the castle at five this morning and… they know where you are."

000

When Edward walked through the door, his happy, lilting whistle died on his lips.

The happy home he had left only twenty minutes before had turned cold and stagnant in his absence. The lovely carefree Bella was now collapsed in a chair, the cordless phone clutched in her hands. She barely acknowledged his entrance save for a quick flicker of the eyes.

A nagging part of Edward's mind, the part that hadn't existed until the frantically fear driven escape from Volterra, pervaded his mind with horrible conclusions that weren't very far from the truth. With it came that fluttering sensation of failure; like he had not been able to protect the one person that meant everything to him. "Bella?" he asked, setting down the paper bags of groceries on the floor. "What happened?"

She didn't look up, but her lips moved noiselessly, trying to say the words that hurt so much. With a pang, Edward recognized the expression on her face as guilt. Finally, she managed to whisper, "It's all my fault Edward. If it hadn't been for me, you would be safe…" A shudder ran through her body, her grip tightened on the phone, making it creak at the pressure. "They're coming for me again, Edward. They know we're here, and now they will want you too."

Immediately, Edward was at the other side of the room; throwing the clothes that had been so carefully hung into a bag. He looked over his shoulder at Bella and gave a wan smile. "Then we'll leave, Bella. We can go anywhere! We'll leave them behind and go somewhere remote. Maybe an island, or Africa, or-"

"No, Edward," Bella interrupted. Her eyes had finally met his and Edward found himself more than a little terrified at the defiance he saw and what it entailed. "I don't want to run anymore."

Feeling the panic induced rage bubble within him, Edward threw the bag to the ground with a crash. In a moment, he was kneeling before Bella, his hands on her shoulders and his golden eyes pleading. "I won't let them have you," he whispered fiercely. "Not now, not ever. But we can't stay here a moment longer; we have to leave _right this moment_!"

He attempted to pull her to her feet, but Bella resisted. "No!" she half-shouted. She was tired of it all: the terror, the paranoia, the anticipation for disaster, and the guilt of knowing that you are the reason for your loved ones' suffering. "I am staying right here, Edward! It has to end…"

Instead of the hurried flight she had been bracing herself for Edward to make, he merely sighed and took the seat beside her. She wanted to question him, ask why he was joining her in a hopeless mission, but stopped herself with the fact that she would have done the same for him.

Simultaneously, they gripped each other's hand, the fingers interlaced and the knuckles whiter than they ought to be. Even in the black hole of her foreboding emotions, Bella was thankful for Edward's companionship, and even more for his love.

Together they sat. Together they watched. Together they waited.

* * *

**I wanted to, well, **_**humanize**_** the Volturi a bit. Make them actual people instead of the nameless, faceless villains they are sometimes thought of.**

**I hope I will get time to post soon. We are, after all, in the home stretch now.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: If I were Stephenie Meyer, I wouldn't be this rude and wait so long to update.

* * *

**

Chapter Eleven:  
Where Enemies Appear in the Form of Both Vampires and Crosswalks

Emmett fiddled with the radio, sighing at the results it brought about. He was behind the wheel of his giant jeep, driving through a Canadian forest with the dexterity of one who knows that, if they should find themselves in a situation where the road is no longer under their massive tires, they could easily plow over anything in their path. He was attempting to find a suitable station for the long drive to Forks, Washington that he was undertaking. As the leader in the procession (Alice's not so subtle Porsche behind him and the moving truck that Esme and Carlisle had commandeered taking up the rear), Emmett felt that he should set the tone of this journey correctly. The only problem was that there was no good, tone-setting music on the radio.

Oddly, Emmett wanted to ask Edward about it. This rather shocked Emmett because, when the odd, silent boy had been brought home halfway into his change, Emmett had taken a territorial stance toward the newcomer. Though he would never admit it, Emmett could remember feeling jealous when Rose would laugh at his dry humor or help him with his difficulty in abstaining.

As the weeks turned into months, though, Emmett's rigid stance of rejection took a turn when Edward had approached him with a request. He had wanted to be driven into town, to a record store, and he trusted Emmett to keep close enough of an eye on him so that if he did have trouble with the people, he could be pulled back. "I know I shouldn't risk it," Edward had said, "but I miss the music."

Not knowing why he agreed, Emmett took him to the small shop in town, surprised when he saw some light return to the boy's normally empty eyes as familiar band names and beloved albums were plucked off the shelf with reverence. The boy had found himself in those dusty stacks of CDs.

Edward was a fountain of musical knowledge, being able to recall minute details of a song's production and anecdotes of bands' performances without hesitation, and Emmett was fascinated by how it changed him. Though there was still that heavy sadness with Edward's every move, Emmett could see a glimpse of what he had been like before whatever nameless thing had come and altered his life forever.

They had become brothers, Edward and Emmett, and the latter missed his new friend.

A cold, professional ring broke through Emmett's music-less reverie. It was Carlisle's cell phone, entrusted to Emmett while he was taking up residence in the back of the moving van that Esme drove, making sure that the beautiful antiques didn't smash into each other (Something that Emmett thought Carlisle would get generous thanks from Esme for).

Throwing a quick grin to Rose, who sat in the passenger seat with a book on classic cars, Emmett answered the phone in a supercilious voice, exaggerating the faint British accent that Carlisle could never get rid of. "Good day. I am afraid that the doctor is out, so if you would please leave a message with me, the trustworthy nurse Emmett, I'd be more than happy to pass on the information."

"Emmett?" The tone was soft, but Emmett could easily recognize who owned that rather tense but musical voice.

"Eddy!" Emmett exclaimed. "I was _just_ thinking about you! Hey, do you have any CDs hidden around here? When I ventured onto the radio, the only things I could find were talk shows, so I gave up. Now I'm desperate for some decent tunes and I would owe you my life if-"

"The Volturi know where we are and are coming for us, Emmett," Edward interrupted.

Flabbergasted, Emmett couldn't stop the outburst of "What, you suck _that much_ at hiding? What'd you do, send them a postcard with your address on it?" A sharp punch in the ribs from Rosalie brought him to his senses and he tried to babble out an apology.

Rosalie, her face already set in the calm, distant expression she donned in times of stress, said into the phone, "I'll tell Carlisle, Edward. Don't worry, we'll think of something."

"Thank you, Rosalie," replied a grateful Edward, but she was already out the still moving car and into the passenger seat of the moving truck. Emmett could hear Esme's gasp of shock from where he was.

Emmett, uncomfortable with the grieving, frightened (but only frightened in the I'm-scared-shitless-but-I-don't-want-to-worry-anyone-by-showing-it way) silence on the other end of the phone asked, "How is Bella handling it?"

There was a pause and an exhale of breath. Emmett could almost hear him running a hand through his messy hair, signaling the tried and true frustration, worry, and overwhelming panic that Emmett had seen Edward display many times during his abstinence training. "She… she's out scouting a good place in Forks to meet them, so that no people will be in harm's way." He paused before admitting, "I'm real worried about her, Emmett. She's just kind of shut down and it's like there is nothing but a need for closure driving her."

"Call me stupid for bringing this up, Eddy," Emmett began tensely, "but why don't you just run away?"

Again Emmett was greeted with silence. But this was not the leaden quiet brought on from weariness and emotional uproar; no, _this_ silence was filled with the electricity of expectation. Emmett realized that Edward, for his entire automatic plan making and thinking, didn't quite know why they were staying. If Emmett wasn't so damn curious he might have been embarrassed at his intrusiveness.

"I suppose…" Edward started, still searching for the words to describe the resolute need to stay, "I suppose I want to know what it would be like to want for nothing; to be perfectly content. Never have I just enjoyed something without a nagging worry tugging at the back of my mind. And to know that Bella felt the same way… She just deserves so much more than what has been thrust upon us."

Resolute protectiveness stole over Emmett at his brother's words. "We'll be down as soon as possible," he assured, pressing his foot down even further on the gas pedal.

"Thank you Emmett. And, if you're still interested, I distinctly remember keeping a Clash album underneath the passenger seat."

After Edward hung up, Emmett couldn't help but feel that AC/DC would have been much more appropriate. With his frantically helpless disposition and the looming destination of Forks in his mind, he felt as though he were on the highway to Hell, and there were no exits in sight.

000

In Forks, Susan Perry was undergoing the serious and grave task of crossing the road.

To her, crosswalks were not something that reminded her fondly of the Beatles, but leering tribal markings that caused nothing but paranoia and dread. This irrational logic was founded on the summer day decades ago when her pink Schwinn was run over due to her childhood belief that crosswalks were parking spaces for bikes. Boy, was she proved wrong. The memory of its shiny pink parts flying through the air still haunted her dreams.

Today, she carefully prepared for her dangerous journey by looking to the left and the right six times each in her own OCD manner. She was about to take a step when a loud squealing and the smell of burning tires reached her frightened senses. Backtracking with speed that none would suspect to arise from those aging limbs, Susan Perry threw herself back on the curb and clutched the street sign for dear life.

The traffic violator ceased in a sudden and well-executed manner at the stop sign. It was a glossy black SUV, with windows so dark, Susan couldn't see the driving demons until they lowered. The driver was a pale and thin man in his early thirties wearing a suit like the kind men in the FBI wore. His skin seemed to reflect the clouds above as he leaned his head out the window and sniffed the air with impatience. After a few seconds, he leaned back in, closed the window, and sped off.

Though none of this was as off-putting as the sight Susan witnessed in the back seat. The window had rolled smoothly down, displaying one of the loveliest children Susan Perry had ever seen. The girl, though, instead of laughing angelically like she expected, glared at her with wide red eyes and pulled back her lips to display lethal looking teeth. But then the car was speeding away, to the empty fields a half mile or so away.

Susan sat down on a sidewalk bench and promptly tried to forget it all.

000

The wind had kicked up when Edward was finished checking the perimeter of the meadow for any innocent hikers that could stumble in during this catastrophically horrible meeting. Luckily, there were none, but he still looked west, where Forks was. It felt too close, too vulnerable. Turning his back away from this worrisome problem, Edward saw Bella returning from her rounds.

As he had said to Emmett, Edward felt anxious about Bella's behavior. She went through her actions with a detachment that made her robotic; her answers to his anxious questions were monotone, her movements jerky and hesitant. As much as he racked his mind, Edward couldn't find a single thing to say that would somehow ease her mind. He hated to see his love's eyes filled with tragic withdrawal.

Silently, Edward reached for her hand and placed the palm on the side of his face, gently kissing her wrist as he did so. It was a simple, but decidedly tender and intimate gesture. In it, Bella saw that the undeniable devotion that she felt was returned inch for inch. If she were capable of tears, they would be running down her alabaster skin right now.

"Oh, Edward," Bella whispered softly as she ran her other hand through his bright hair. Understanding that this could be their last few moments with each other, they grasped the other with their hearts on their sleeves. Simultaneously, they leaned in, seeking that comforting contact of the lips and feverishly wrapping their arms around each other.

Time stopped; allowing this small pocket of bliss for the distraught lovers. No matter what happened next, there would always be this one perfect and shimmering moment where they had no doubt or question of their love.

It ended when the wind shifted, bringing with it the sound of an approaching SUV and the smell of their own kind. Breaking apart unwillingly, Edward and Bella clasped hands and faced their oncoming enemy and the uncertainty that came with it.

000

Susan Perry sat on a sidewalk bench, clutching her gasping chest. Though it was over ten minutes later and there were telltale signs of a storm beginning to brew, she couldn't bring herself to once again brave the treacherous crosswalk. She jumped every time she heard a car but winced when thunder tolled far off in the distance.

These two hateful things battled in her mind. Should she stay on this bench and get soaked, or should she risk the chance of getting run over, like her pink Schwinn?

Another wheeze of thunder made up her mind for her and she stepped tentatively to the curb. Susan looked left, then right, then left again, the right again before glancing to the left, then the right, then the left. Having secured in her mind the fact that the streets were clear, she promptly checked to her right and left, then jogged bravely into the street.

She was halfway across when grinding gears belonging to a powerful engine shrieked in her ears. The biggest car she had ever seen – a cherry red Jeep of looming proportions – came to an immediate stop at the stop sign in front of the crosswalk. Behind it, there was a yellow sports car and after that was a moving truck. Susan Perry swallowed in terror as she saw how close the glinting grill of the first car was.

Before she could make up her mind as to whether or not she should run or faint, a man with a thatch of curly brown hair leaned out of the driver's window in a manner similar to the pale man from before. He sniffed at the air for a second, then looked at Susan with serious golden eyes. "Would you mind moving?" he asked her with clipped urgency. "'Cause if you don't, I'm in no mood to have qualms about running you over."

In the swiftest jerk of movement Susan had ever managed to make, she was back on the street curb, sprawled on the bench, her clammy skin pale with horror. She saw the procession go in the same direction as the SUV before them and felt a chill go up her spine that wasn't at all brought on by the weather.

Her heart sank when she realized that she was still on the sidewalk she had begun on. Looking at the crosswalk with a reverent fear reserved for only the most vicious of gods in Grecian times, Susan decided that a little rain couldn't hurt anyone.

000

Though the little bit of rain that was now falling onto Edward and Bella couldn't hurt them, the figures approaching them surely could.

Bella began to expand her shield, pushing it over Edward as well. With dread, she counted out eight Volturi, not the dreadfully large amount her mind had been expecting, but still outnumbering Edward and her. Two menacing men that she had only glimpsed in the throne room were leading the procession as Aro was flanked by Jane and Alec in the middle and followed by two women and a man. The amount of unknown faces worried Bella; with people you knew, weaknesses were easy to pick out, but she didn't know anything about these people. They, on the other hand, knew all about her.

She looked toward Edward, who stood tall and firm at her side. His chin was raised in unflinching and cocky self assurance and his eyes stared straight ahead blazing ferocity. If Bella didn't know him so well, she would only assume that he was completely confident of coming out of this the unscathed victor, but she saw the panicked anxiety about the lines of his mouth and eyes. As he squeezed her hand more tightly, Bella saw that this worry was not for his own welfare, but for that of her, his love. She returned his gesture with just as much love.

Not turning his head or showing any sign of speaking, Edward muttered out of the corner of his mouth: "They're confused. They expected to surprise us and catch us off our guard, not see us completely prepared for them."

Not a move was made after the Volturi came to a stop twenty feet away from Edward and Bella. Not a sound was made except for the howling wind. Not an emotion was displayed as they watched each other with apprehension. The thunder rolled overhead and a gentle rain started to fall. They all ignored it.

Aro was the first to speak, breaking out in front of the two guards in front of him and looking at the lovers with the expression of a parent who is only trying to reason with their illogical children. "You two must realize the consequences of what you have done. I will, however, grant you reprieve if you accompany us back to Voltaire and join the guard."

Edward snorted with amusement. "Though that is a lovely offer, I'm afraid we'll just have to decline." He smiled mockingly, knowing that insulting Aro had to be on the top of the list What Not to Ever Do in Any Situation. _All I need is some time, though,_ he thought. _The others are almost here._

Aro clenched his old wrists in rage. It wasn't until now that Bella noticed how different he looked; his eyes were too dark and angry to be like the energetic and bright ones she had always seen before, his skin looked even frailer than it normally did, and he had an overwhelming sense of desperation about him. He tried to hide it under his haughty air and demanding tones, but he was acting as surely as Edward. "How dare you!" he spat. "How dare you insult me?" At his outburst, the guards fanned out, starting to surround the two. "You seem to forget, young Edward, that we can easily kill you. You're outnumbered."

In the most perfect of timing – saved specifically for movies and Saturday morning cartoons – a booming voice yelled, "Not anymore!"

It all happened rather quickly after that.

Emmett was the first to reach the group; hurtling himself through the rain that filled the air and tackling two of the guards at once. Rosalie was close behind, deftly pulling one of the two down by his face and unleashing a tornado of fists and blonde fury. Alice and Jane were whirling in a seemingly synchronized ballet, both of their tiny bodies just barely dancing out of the other's reach. Carlisle had dragged one of the guards off of Esme and was quickly making him regret choosing _his _wife to harm. Jasper was caught in a match of strategic feigning and attack with one of the more vicious looking female guards.

All the while, Aro was being closely watched over by Alec, who, like his sister, was frantic by the fact that his powers didn't affect anyone. His eyes madly searched the cause of this unusual phenomenon and they settled on Bella. She had her eyes closed, her mouth compressed tightly in concentration and her hands vaguely outstretched, as if she were manipulating some invisible fabric in front of her. Alec's eyes widened in disbelief and he quickly sought to remedy the situation.

Gesturing to a man from the guard who had just landing after being thrown across the field by Carlisle, Alec nodded his head toward Bella, signaling that she was the prime target. The man nodded once and quickly ran over to the brunette with his arms outstretched and ready to tear her limbs apart under the command of his superior.

Edward, who had been flitting across the field and assisting his family in any way he could, saw this thought in the man's mind and promptly grabbed his throat. The guard, for all his battles and wars, had never seen such fury and loathing in the eyes of anyone like he saw in this young man's golden ones. Feeling strong hands grip even more tightly around his throat, the man wondered if the Volturi were way over their heads to be going against people like this.

One of the women came out of nowhere and brutally ripped the two apart before delivering a vicious jab at Edward's ribcage while the man held him. The sound of four ribs breaking snapped Bella out of her trance and brought her attention to her Edward. He struggled as much as he could, but they had overpowered him. Soaked in rain, seeing his family being steadily overtaken by the guard, Edward felt the fear that had been creeping along the edges of his conscious take him over. His eyes met Bella's, and in them she saw his final goodbye.

Desperation took her over. Thinking that somehow, some _way_, she could help them, help Edward, she gathered her shield and mentally thrust it towards him without even thinking about it. All she could think about was that Edward was in pain.

This was the moment that Alec was waiting for. All of a sudden, Bella was out of the protection of her shield, having projected it toward the fighting group of family and foe in front of her. She was left defenseless. He pushed the slow buildup of his Novocain-like mist toward her with all the force he could manage.

All of Bella's senses were cut off. Numb from everything around her, she collapsed to the ground without feeling a thing. Blind, deaf, and dumb, she lay immobile in the cloying darkness.

Alec moved quickly; building up the nearly invisible mist to form a thick layer over her body, he crouched beside her and spread his hands across the bare skin of her face. Like elastic, her shield was trying to snap back into place, with only Alec's dense mist to hold it at bay. But still, it forced with a persistence he wouldn't be able to handle without direct contact with her skin.

Her sudden fall caught the attention of all the Cullens. The highly trained and highly merciless Volturi guard took the opportunity to grab whoever they were fighting and pin them. Jane, now uninhibited by the disappearance of the shield, unleashed her special brand of torture on to the Cullens. They gamely took the excruciating pain without screaming.

Everyone seemed to have forgotten Edward. He shakily stood up, his ribcage mending and reworking, and looked up to see his family under Volturi control. He scanned their pained, sorry faces, heard the bitter screams inside their thoughts, and saw that they would have done it all again to help him. Edward slowly turned until he saw Bella, his lovely Bella, completely still on the ground.

A strangled cry rose from his throat as he staggered to her. He wanted to kill Alec, who dared to touch her beautiful face; he wanted to see this demon child suffer for the suffering he was bringing upon them. Edward growled lowly. Yes, the boy would pay, and then the rest of the guard would pay, especially Aro.

As he was about to make his vow a reality, though, a thought from around him caught his attention. It was little Jane, who had been sadistically taking pleasure out of the Cullens' pain when she realized that she couldn't get to Edward. _How is this? They boy isn't a shield; he can't be immune, as well._

That stopped Edward in his tracks. It seems that Bella, so adamant to protect him, had used what little power she had left to do just that. Even though it was temporary, Edward had a valuable parting gift from Bella. If he acted out in vengeance to free his family, he would miss the opportunity that was so prominently before him. All of his family may be held back, but that meant that all the Volturi guard couldn't risk letting them go. Except the lone Aro, who had no protection.

Aro realized this at the same moment. He saw the young Edward stand up straight, ignoring the pain in his ribs, and turn his blazing gold eyes toward him. Aro hadn't felt real terror in ages, but now he felt to his very core. Running was useless and, due to the power that came with his position, he had not fought in countless centuries. All he could do was stand there, motionless with the fearful anticipation of what would happen next.

Edward took his time to close the space between them. Every step meaningful, he looked like an avenging angel as the rain ran through his now darkened hair and dragged at the hem of his t-shirt. Never had anyone looked so lethal, so furious, while wearing a thin cotton shirt that proclaimed him to be a fan of Richard Hell and the Voidoids.

With a sudden rush of speed, Edward knocked Aro down. He crouched beside him and splayed his hands across the fragile skin in an obvious mimic of what Alec had done to Bella. Forcing the man to see what he had seen, hear what he had heard, and feel what he had felt, Edward made Aro relive the past two years through his eyes.

Aro had never felt so suffocated before. His struggling was useless as the boy held him firmly down. All Aro could do was watch his tale.

His human life passed quickly before his eyes until his seemed to slow down, forced to take its time, when it came to a rain soaked beach and a beautiful girl on a pier. Aro could feel that instant need to help her, that timeless connection, as Edward had felt. The elated waiting for morning followed as Edward just wanted to see her face again.

Then the crushing disappointment at this beautiful girl's disappearance and the months of waiting that followed. The tireless planning that led up to the briefest, but most heavenly, minutes of contact before she left again. Resolve steeled over his heart but it wasn't enough to protect him from the bullets that came next.

Aro was helpless to avoid feeling the boy's pain after the good doctor changed him. And through all the practice for control and all the dizzying information that Edward was put through when he first became a vampire, all he had thought about was her. Only her.

And when she was seen in Forks in a vision of Alice's, Edward followed without a second glance. She had thought that he was dead, she had mourned him, and she felt the same. Both gave themselves to the other, freely sharing the love they had been safely harboring in uncertainty in the most beautiful and lovely of moments.

Then, once more, she left, unknowingly taking his heart with her. Edward's unexpected visit with his parents surprised Aro. The control and the respectful love he felt for them was evident in every facet of that beloved memory. The bittersweet sadness of that meeting shoved violently out of his mind when Carlisle said the word "Volturi."

Searching again. The plane ride was full of worry, and the meeting with Felix was riddled with false confidence as he told himself over and over again that they wouldn't keep them apart. They couldn't. No one was that heartless.

Edward forced Aro to linger in the crumbling world he had found himself in as Aro told him that Bella no longer loved him. Next was the zombie like complacency that came from being under Chelsea's power and the underlining confusion as Edward searched his heart for any feeling for Bella.

He was saved from this when Bella could control her power, and the two ran away for what they thought would be the last time. But their happy and safe bubble was punctured abruptly with one call from Felix.

Then Aro saw himself; saw how cold and self-righteous and cruel and desperate he was as he set his drones to attack an innocent family. He heard the Cullens' thoughts as they fought to help their new son and brother, daughter and sister, without an inkling of blame. Aro heard what they each thought of him, from Rosalie's assertions that he was a heartless bastard, to Jasper's quick assessment that he had gone to far in his search for power, to sweet Esme's cold rage as she directed it toward anyone who would harm her family, to Carlisle and his wishful remembrance of a different Aro from centuries past.

But this was all miniscule to the thoughts of Bella that had been first and foremost in Edward's mind since they met. Happy Bella, sad Bella, angry Bella, sweet Bella, determined Bella, Bella just being Bella as she read a book and unconsciously chewed on her pinkie nail. Bella playfully swatting Edward's shoulder in mock anger, Bella laughing in delight as Edward twirled her around faster and faster, Bella being embarrassed when Edward said they had eloped in Las Vegas, Bella heartbroken as her dream was shattered by the Volturi, Bella standing on tip toes to kiss the love of her life, Bella being brave in the face of almost certain death. Just _Bella_.

And through it all was the unwavering love and devotion that Edward felt for her every second.

Edward took his hands from Aro's face and stepped back, ready to shred the ruler limb from limb if he didn't take this second chance that he had been given. He saw Aro slowly get up, rain plastering his white hair over his face and dragging down his robe to show his vulnerably thin frame. He said nothing as he looked in the pained eyes of the Cullens, who he had been so jealous of, not because of their power, but because they had the bravery to change and adapt, unlike him.

Shamefaced and stunned from seeing himself in this new light, Aro thought, _Dear God, what have I done?_ Knowing his brothers had been right, he gestured for his guard to let the Cullens go and led them back to the forest and their waiting car, ignoring their confused looks and anger at being taken away from a fight that they were winning.

Aro vowed, with one last look to the Cullens standing in a semicircle around Edward and Bella, that he would find it in himself to change, even if it killed him.

000

Bella woke with a start when her shield pushed away the last vestige of Alec's mist. She looked around in horror, expecting to see her Edward and his family dead on the field, but instead, found herself in Edward's loving arms, his family surrounding them.

"What happened?" she asked.

Edward smiled. "You did." And she understood completely, without needing to ask.

He helped her up and turned her to face their new family, who were paired off and taking stock of their partners' wounds. Esme was helping Carlisle reset his shoulder with a loud crack, Jasper snapped Alice's wrist back in place as she told him what a bitch Jane was, and Rosalie cooed over the long gash that cut through Emmett's shirt and left a clean slice in his back. He looked proud as she told him that she thought scars were sexy.

Wanting to make this a happy moment, Edward cleared his throat to draw their attention and they looked up. Bella could feel their eyes on her and she looked down in embarrassment. "Everyone," Edward started with exaggerated formality, "this is Bella, my girlfriend." A smile spread across his face as he realized what an understatement that was before he continued, "Bella, this is Carlisle, Esme, Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, and Emmett." He gestured toward each of them as he said their name.

Bella looked up, expecting to see their faces angry because of what she had put them through and instead seeing Alice and Emmett fighting to welcome her first before they both settled on hugging her enthusiastically at the same time. As Alice commented on how nice her hair looking even when it was soaked, Emmett pounded her on the back and said that she was too pretty to be with Edward. Jasper shook her hand politely and Rosalie smiled widely before Esme wrapped her in a tight hug and Carlisle welcomed her into the family. All this time, Edward stood back and watched with a face-splitting grin.

As the rain decreased and the sun could be seen through the thinning clouds, Bella caught his eye and returned his smile, feeling happier and more complete than she ever had been as her family enveloped her with all the love they had.

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**One more left!**

**And, in regards to Edward showing Aro his memory: Aro had seen it before, but only after Chelsea took control of Edward, making it different in the way he perceived his past and the people in it. **


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: Disclaimed is disclaimed is disclaimed.  
**

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Chapter Twelve:  
In Which Endings Are Just Beginnings in Disguise

Marcus stalked back and forth across the floor of the throne room, feeling like the stone walls were becoming too confined, too claustrophobic. Caius watched on silently from his chair and waited for his personal guards to escort his brother (or perhaps ex-brother; he didn't know what the etiquette for a situation like this was) to this room of all rooms.

Though he knew that he ought to be as angry as Marcus, Caius could not grasp at the feeling enough to be driven by it. Aro, even in his defiance and thirst for things out of his reach, was family. Nothing else seemed to matter much in Caius's mind on that account. The ties that bind are more steadfast than the pulls for which they are broken.

The doors opened and Aro entered the room. He was not struggling in the hands of his escorts like Marcus had thought, but coolly walking in front of them with his hands clasped before him, like a repentant child. The guards filtered out of the room and closed the door, sealing the silence of the three estranged brothers.

Caius continued to watch as neither of his brothers said anything. Marcus had stopped pacing and stood by the far wall, watching Aro with narrowed eyes and distrustful anger. Aro just stood there, looking as though he wanted to say something but could not think of the words to articulate such an overwhelming feeling. Taking his brother's silence as defiance, Marcus suddenly spat, "Back again? Do you not remember that by choosing to leave, you forfeited your right of calling Volterra home?"

Staring at his clasped hands, Aro gently responded, "Yes, brother. I am aware."

Marcus, who refused to let Aro's seemingly penitent appearance shake him, snapped, "Then why did you return?"

To his brothers' surprise, Aro told the truth. "I saw that I have gone astray, and I wish to return to the ideals we had begun with, all those years ago." His pale red eyes sought out Marcus's and Caius's. "Am I too late for repentance, my dear bothers, or is there still a chance for me to be the man I should have been?"

Caius watched as the anger fled from Marcus's face. All past blunders were erased at the sight of the proud and unforgiving Aro dropping his prejudices and doing his best to change what he had become. Pardoning his brother's faults, Marcus embraced Aro and told him how sorry he was for his behavior.

Caius permitted himself one of his rare smiles and joined his brothers in the center of the chamber, glad to see that that the rift between them was closing as the ties that bound grew thicker from their brief strain.

000

Behind the counter at the bank, Edward absentmindedly fiddled with the small metal nametag pinned to the front of his white button down shirt. Mrs. Stanley, his supervising manager, was making personal phone calls to her mother in her office, so Edward was left to man the empty bank. After the surge of people suddenly wanting to withdrawal and deposit money when Edward first started working had worn down, the bank had become a desolate ghost town that saw, at most, half a dozen people a day.

Edward focused murderously on the large clock hung on the opposite wall like it would speed up out of fear for the young bank teller. The moment the clock struck 5:00, Edward gave a short goodbye to Mrs. Stanley before he rushed out the door with his umbrella in hind. Uncaring of the traffic, he bounded across the street and stood in his usual spot in front of the library where Bella worked.

It was such an expected thing to happen now that the people of Forks didn't even glance at the grinning youth with auburn hair as the brunette greeted him with a kiss of Hollywood-like perfection. Even beauty of that degree can be accustomed to with enough exposure.

"Hello Mr. Masen," Bella smirked as she pulled away from Edward and flicked his nametag. "How was your day?"

"Dreadful, Mrs. Masen," he quipped in return, referring to the fact that the whole town thought they were married.

"And why is that, Mr. Masen?" she asked, playing along to his over exaggerated tones as the walked home.

"I didn't get to see my darling wife all day." He wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her closer to his side.

"It was only a few hours and-"

"Nevertheless, I have you all to myself tonight." His hand crept lower and Bella giggled in surprise before shaking her head.

"I am afraid that is not possible."

"And why not?" he demanded.

"Esme has requested our presence tonight at their house for a family dinner without the dinner."

Edward pressed his lips to the side of her neck and started to trace his fingers along the sliver of exposed skin between her shirt and pants in an effort to persuade her differently. "But I had something special planned tonight," he breathed into her ear.

Bella shivered gently but remained strong. "What? More special than the three times this morning, the seven times last night, or the two times during our lunch break yesterday? I'm afraid that it will have to wait."

Edward heaved a sigh. "Well, I suppose I will just have to get it over with now."

"That would be called indecent exposure, sweet-" She broke off when Edward handed her the umbrella and dropped to one knee, becoming soaked under the quickly strengthening downpour. "What are you doing?" she asked in a hesitant voice.

"What I was saving to do for tonight," he snapped petulantly as he searched his pants for the small box he had been carrying for the past week. Once it was found he held it out to her and opened it to reveal a stunning diamond ring in a setting that matched the bracelet she wore on her wrist.

There was no big speech. There was no grand gesture. The last two years had been so full of them that they were no longer needed. All that was there was a boy with a question on his face and a girl with the answer in her eyes.

Bella dropped umbrella and, not even noticing the rain staining her hair darker, covered her mouth with both her hands, as if to stop the wide smile spreading across her face or keep in the shouts of joy that were threatening to take her over. "You do realize," she started, her voice trembling with the strain to keep it steady, "that Emmett will insist on being the priest?"

His face solemn, Edward nodded. "As much as I realize that Alice is going to insist on planning every second."

"Hmm. How do you feel about elopement?"

"Frankly, as long as the end result is marrying you, I couldn't care less about how we get there."

Bella nodded for a few seconds before wild happiness took over. Laughing exuberantly, she launched herself at her now fiancée and covered his beaming face in kisses as he slipped the ring onto her finger.

He picked her up and started to twirl her around in circles. Both of them were oblivious to the stares of people around them as they looked into each other's eyes and knew that every trial had been worth it to end up in this exact moment in time.

**

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Well, it's over. I'm so utterly thankful to everyone who has read and reviewed this fic.**

**To look out for in the future: I have several stories lined up to post next, but I don't want to do so until I'm far enough along to prevent the long pauses between chapters that you've had to suffer through. And, maybe, there will be a third chapter to a very popular two-shot of mine. I'm crossing my fingers that it will turn out well.**


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